CG 2022: Basketball

At the 2022 Commonwealth Games basketball will be played a little differently. Instead of there being teams of five there will be teams of three.

Rules:
- 10-minute games
- 12 second shot-clock
- No quarters or half-time
- Only half a court is used to play the game
- Two teams of three players plus one substitute
- Baskets inside the arc are one point and baskets outside the arc are two points
- First team to 21 points wins

Facts:
The first time this format of the game was played was in 2007 when FIBA decided to experiment with a different form of Basketball.

The first credited 3x3 basketball event was held back in 2010 at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. From then it continued to grow and will now appear in the next Olympic Games in Tokyo.

For this version of basketball, the ball size is six, but the weight is 22 ounces or 620 grams (the weight of a size seven ball.)

In 3x3 basketball there are men’s, women’s and mixed teams.
This is the first time 3x3 basketball will be in the Commonwealth Games.

The favourites:
For the men, the top two teams are Serbia and the USA. They are top of the world rankings with Serbia sitting comfortably above the USA in first. However, the current world champions are the USA, both Latvia and Poland both finished above Serbia who came fourth overall. The clear favourites for the men are the USA and Serbia.

For the women, the top teams are France, China and Russia. France sit at the top while China and Russia are close to each other in second and third. In the 2019 World Championships China won while Hungary came in second and France third, Russia finished in sixth. China and France will be the teams to beat, but Hungary and Spain who had a good World Cup could surprise people.

England
Even though England have competed in a handful of 3x3 basketball events there is not an official national team. However, there will still be a selection process from the selected coaches. There will be scouting reports done on players both in training and in games. Players from both 3x3 and 5x5 formats will be considered for the team.

WHERE and WHEN are the games?
The matches for the 3x3 basketball tournament will be played at the Smithfield venue in the centre of Birmingham. The competition will take place from Friday 29th July to Tuesday 2nd August.