3-on-3 Olympic basketball planned

By MYLES VALENTINE

The International Olympics Committee added 3-on-3 basketball to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic program on Friday. The IOC called the changes more youthful, urban and female focused. They are striving to one day have an even split of 50 percent male and 50 percent female athletes. There were about 45 percent female athletes in Rio. As far as what teams are selected and how teams qualify, that’s still unclear.

“They don’t want just the basketball powers to compete in 3-on-3,” said USA Basketball CEO Jim Tooley . “FIBA will get together and figure out how teams will qualify. They will definitely want to reward countries that have been doing a lot of 3-on-3 activities.”

The U.S. has been pushing 3-on-3 over the past few years and held a national tournament last month. The winners will head to the World Cup in France later this month.

Three-on-three only uses half of the court. It’s played with one-basket with two teams of four players (one sub). Typically, game time is 10 minutes or first team to 21 points. The 2020 Olympic 3-on-3 tournaments will include eight men’s teams and eight women’s teams.

The rules are made for more up-tempo competition. There should be more updates in the coming weeks .FIBA said it will announce qualification procedures and a competition format at a later date.