USA Wins 3×3 Gold Medal

The 2012 USA Women’s 3×3 World Championship Team (9-0) went undefeated in capturing the inaugural FIBA 3×3 World Championship on Sunday in Athens, Greece.

The USA defeated Australia (8-1) 19-18 in the semifinals, coming from behind to capture gold with a 17-16 victory over France (8-1) in the gold medal game.

“No, it never gets old ever,” Diggins told USABasketball.com.  “This is one of the most memorable definitely because it was the first time ever. We’ve all been talking about this, in 100 years they’re doing this in the Olympics, when we’re old, we can tell our kids that we were in the first one. When it’s added to the Olympics and things like that.”

Falling behind France 7-2, the USA fought back to claim the lead, 10-9, with less than five minutes to play in the 10-minute game.

“When they got up on that 7-2 lead it was really intimidating,” said Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike. “At the same time, the funny thing is that I didn’t really realize it because I was so into the game. It’s very back and forth. It’s a game of momentum and strategy and I’m glad our strategy prevailed.”

France put together a 4-0 run and was back in front 13-10 at 3:51. Then the U.S. put together a 5-0 run jump-started with a Diggins free throw at 3:22. UConn’s Bria Hartley tied it at 13 with a hoop at 3:01 and hit the USA’s next two buckets and with 1:55 to play, the Americans owned a 15-13 edge.

“I think we knew we had to buckle down, and we looked each other in the eye and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s turn this around, let’s step up defensively,’” said Hartley. “That’s what we did and we picked it up on offense as well.”