USA Basketball’s five-on-five teams may be destined for gold medals in the 2024 Paris Olympics, but the men’s three-on-three team is headed home.
Almost doesn’t count for the Americans, who lost their first four games, then won two in a row before a crushing 21-6 loss to Netherlands in the pool play finale Sunday afternoon.
Had Team USA secured a victory, it would have been Poland finishing in seventh place and China in eighth, with the USA advancing to the knockout rounds as the fifth seed.
With team captain Jimmer Fredette missing his fifth straight game due to a groin injury, however, the Americans mustered just six points, succumbing to the smothering Dutch defense that held them to just 5-of-18 shooting from the field and 1-of-11 shooting from behind the arc.
Canyon Barry’s previous hot shooting made Fredette’s absence an afterthought, combining for 29 points in a pair of victories over France and China on Friday.
Barry’s streak, however, came to an end on Sunday. He missed all four of his attempts from downtown and scored just two points. Kareem Maddox and Dylan Travis also scored two points apiece.
Meanwhile, Team USA failed to turn over the Dutch once in their elimination game on Sunday. Netherlands shot 5-of-10 from downtown and 9-of-11 from inside the arc, shooting 66.7% from the field in the game.
The Dutch secured the second seed in the men’s three-on-three tournament and, alongside reigning gold medalists Latvia, will automatically advance to the semifinals.
Lithuania finished third after defeating Serbia, which dropped from second to fourth place. France secured the fifth seed, and with Team USA’s loss, Poland avoided elimination and finished sixth.
For USA Basketball, the clock now resets to four years — four years to secure higher-level talent from the country that fancies itself the world superpower of basketball.
Fredette, despite his decorated college basketball career at BYU, never panned out as an NBA player. Travis is a special education teacher. Barry, the son of Hall of Famer Rick Barry, is a full-time scientist, and Maddox was an audio producer before he began playing three-on-three.
The USA is home to the best basketball league on the planet, but no active NBA players qualified for the three-on-three team due to the criteria needed to make a roster.
Players must compete in FIBA-sanctioned three-on-three events in the years leading up to the Olympics in order to be eligible to play for gold.
Which means USA Basketball needs a new approach, and they can start by following the women’s blueprint.
The Team USA women’s three-on-three team advanced to the knockout rounds with a 4-3 record after securing the third seed behind Germany and Spain.
The women’s team had success, unlike the men, because the committee responsible for assembling the team took a different roster-building approach.
Hailey Van Lith, for example, is a standout guard transferring from LSU to TCU and is projected as a top pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. She has been part of Team USA’s three-on-three program since 2018 at age 17 .
Former Stanford star and current Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink was also supposed to headline the three-on-three team after securing three FIBA gold medals (2018 Under-17 World Cup Belarus, 2019 Under-19 World Cup Thailand, and 2023 FIBA World Cup Austria), but she tore her ACL midway through her rookie year and is out for the season.
The committee replaced her with three-time WNBA All-Star Dearica Hamby, who won 2023 FIBA AmeriCup MVP in San Juan and led Team USA to gold.
Rhyne Howard is a two-time WNBA All-Star and the 2022 Rookie of the Year for the Atlanta Dream. She had lengthy five-on-five experience, but she first participated in three-on-three competition in the 2019 Red Bull USA Basketball 3×3 Nationals at age 19. Howard was also a member of the Team USA roster that won silver in 2024 FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series Springfield Stop.
And Cierra Burdick is a decorated three-on-three veteran with three FIBA gold medals plus another gold medal in the 2023 Santiago Pan American Games.
The women’s three-on-three roster is built on young talent. Meanwhile, the men’s roster is composed of past-their-prime players who never made it to the pro level.
Which is why they’re going home, and if the men’s committee can’t figure out a way to get better players qualified for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the result will be the same.
Or maybe they won’t qualify for the Olympics at all.
