Canadian men upend 6th-ranked Austria in opener at FIBA 3x3 basketball World Cup

CBC Sports

· Posted: Jun 24, 2025 12:35 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

Canada's men astir matched the women with 2 wins to unfastened the FIBA 3x3 hoops World Cup but ran retired of clip Tuesday.

However, their lone triumph was a large accomplishment, a 22-19 determination implicit sixth-ranked Austria successful Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The 17th-ranked Canadians besides mislaid 22-20 to No. 11 China.

Canada, which secured 1 of 3 disposable World Cup spots connected May 25 with a 21-12 handling of Rwanda to headdress a 3-0 show successful Azerbaijan, is backmost astatine the World Cup 7 years pursuing its quarterfinal nonaccomplishment successful Manila, Philippines.

On June 12, 2018, the Netherlands scored 4 points successful 80 seconds for an 18-16 triumph successful a 10-minute contention that included 5 pb changes. Canada held a 16-15 borderline with 73 seconds remaining connected the clock.

In Tuesday's crippled against Austria, neither squad held much than a two-point pb until Aaron Rhooms's two-point changeable gave Canada an 11-8 advantage.

Grant Audu's two-pointer made it a four-point lucifer astatine 16-12 with 3:15 near successful the 10-minute contest.

With Canada starring 19-14, Austria went connected a five-point tally to gully even, keyed by a mates of Matthias Linortner escaped throws.

But Rhooms and Audu enactment the crippled retired of scope implicit the last 90 seconds with a azygous constituent and two-pointer, respectively.

The six-foot-four Audu, from Toronto, is successful his archetypal play with the team. His archetypal large contention was the FIBA 3x3 AmeriCup past December successful San Juan, Puerto Rico, wherever the Canadian programme picked up its first-ever medal astatine the event, defeating Mexico and Dominican Republic for bronze.

Jerome Desrosiers and Audu shared the Canadian pb with 7 points apiece portion Alex Johnson had 4 rebounds. Canada changeable 67 per cent from the tract (14 of 21) portion Austria converted 8 of 10 attempts.

Live sum of the World Cup volition beryllium disposable connected CBC Gem and CBCSports.ca through to the medal games connected Sunday.

The Canadians held respective leads against China but recovered themselves playing catch-up successful the 2nd fractional of the contest.

Back-and-forth contest

When Canada did drawback momentum, Dianliang Zhang was determination to instrumentality it away.

The Canadians went up 13-12 with 3:28 to play erstwhile Xingrui Wu converted a two-point to springiness China the lead. Zhang past made it a two-point crippled 39 seconds later.

The teams were tied 15-15 erstwhile Zhang made 2 foul shots with 1:56 remaining.

Canada knotted matters a mates of much times connected two-pointers by Desrosiers but ZhiChao Xiang scored the last points with 2 conscionable 28 seconds from the last buzzer.

Desrosiers had 9 points to pb Canada on with a game-high 7 rebounds.

Zhang topped each players with 10 points and added 4 rebounds.

Canada's squad besides features Alex "Superman" Johnson, who committed to 3x3 full-time successful 2021.

Johnson and Desrosiers were portion of the radical that placed 3rd astatine the Olympic qualifying tourney past season, narrowly missing a spot successful Paris. Canada's men besides missed retired connected qualifying for the 2021 Olympic tourney successful Tokyo.

Sixteen countries from each 20-team tourney volition scope the single-elimination knockout stage, with part winners headed straight to the quarterfinals.

The Canadians volition implicit excavation play Thursday against France, the 2024 Olympic metallic medallists, astatine 5:10 a.m. ET, and Puerto Rico (7 a.m.) which placed 2nd astatine past year's AmeriCup.