French 3×3 Basketball Team’s Promising Defeat at World Cup Quarterfinals

They remained haggard for long minutes on the warm-up ground, at the foot of the imposing Rathausplatz town hall in the Gothic style. A frustrating defeat because the blue quartet came so close to the feat, eliminating the American team in the quarter-finals of the 3×3 Basketball World Cup in Vienna. But Jimmer Fredette (7 pts), notably passed through the NBA with the Bulls and the Suns, extinguished the hopes of a second consecutive world medal for the Blues this Saturday, after the surprise bronze in 2022, planting a last free throw (21- 19), before the end of regulation time, to qualify Team USA for the semi-finals.

A promising defeat

While the women’s team, reigning world champions, clinched their ticket to the top 4 in Austria, the French team lost at the gates of the last four against the world champions in 2019. Led by Kareem Maddox (5 pts) and Canyon Barry (6 pts), the United States quickly took the lead of the match when the French always managed to come back up to par, in particular thanks to several award-winning 2-point shots from Alex Vialaret and Franck Séguéla (9 pts each).

“It’s for nothing, on two shots coming from the space of their interior players, at the end of possession, rewinds Karim Souchu, French coach. We were behind, we came back, a real 3×3 game. We have shown that the France team, made up of players from the Fed pro team (3×3 Paris), holds up. Nobody saw us there two days ago. It didn’t fall on our side today, but we’ll build on that. The guys are disappointed, but they can be proud, they showed a good face. »

Coming out of the group stage in extremis, the Blues had eliminated Switzerland in 1/8th a little earlier in the afternoon. “It’s bound to be a disappointment tonight, notes Alex Vialaret, captain of the Blues and world medalist in 2022. Regrets ? In this game, no. We lost against a great team. Defensively, we bothered them. We are in the game plan. They take shots at the end of possession while we were good defensively. We may have regrets about the matches we lost in the group stages (3 out of 4), we may not have been reassured but in the end, a World Cup is so long… We were in the quarter-finals, we played, we almost took it, it’s easy to play. It’s 3×3. »