PARIS – Their Olympics couldn’t have started any worse, but the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team has turned its fortunes around just in time to chase a medal.
The U.S. has won five straight games since an 0-3 start and beat China, the world’s No. 1-ranked team, twice on Saturday.
“Those first couple games I just didn’t think our effort was where it needed to be,” Cierra Burdick said after the women’s first win Saturday. “3×3 is a different sport. As much of it can come down to schemes and tactics, a lot of it is just effing wanting it more and gritting it out and working harder and tougher than your opponents and I think we lacked that the first couple games and I think now we’re starting to realize how hard it is to actually get wins.”
The U.S. outscrapped China in the final game of pool play Saturday, winning 14-12 to finish in a four-way tie for second place in the eight-team pool. Germany went 6-1 to earn the one seed, and the U.S., Spain, Canada and Australia all won four games.
The U.S. team of Hamby, Burdick, Hailey van Lith and Rhyne Howard beat Spain, France, Canada and China in pool play.
“We just weren’t like making our lives easy (early on in the tournament),” said Howard, the Atlanta Dream guard who hit a game-winning 3-pointer to beat Canada in pool play. “We were doing things that we were working and then going away from it. Like you could tell we don’t know each other as well as some of the other people here, but every day we’ve continued to stick together and thug it out.”
In the knockout round game Saturday, the U.S. broke open a 7-6 game with four straight points to take a comfortable 11-6 lead with less than six minutes to play. In 3×3 basketball, field goals are worth one point, 3-pointers are worth two and games are 10 minutes long, or the first team to 21.
Hamby started the run with a 3-pointer, made a second driving basket and had an assist on a Burdick basket.
After the game, she told the Olympic news service she “would not change a single thing that has happened” on the way to the medal round.
“We needed those three losses to wake us up and while we may be more talented, we had to figure out a way to dig deep and compete,” she said.
Burdick, who finished with five points and eight rebounds, called the U.S.’s three-game losing streak to start the tournament “a wakeup call.”
“That was the wake-up call that we needed and better to have it earlier than later,” she said.
Canada beat Australia in the other play-in game Saturday, 21-10, and will face top-seeded Germany in Monday’s semifinals.
The U.S. beat Spain for its first win Aug. 1, and Spain lost its final game of pool play, 18-15, to Germany on Saturday.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.