Ireland set for first stop of FIBA 3x3 Women's World Series

Ireland embark on a first ever FIBA 3x3 Women’s World Series campaign on Friday, as they travel to Clermont-Ferrand, France to play their opening event of the worldwide tour.

It will be a baptism of fire for Colin O’Reilly’s squad as the competition features five of the eight nations that will be competing at the Olympics later this year - China, Germany, Canada, France and Azerbaijan.

Ireland have been drawn in Pool ‘B’ alongside the second seeded French and invitational side Clermont-Ferrand, who contain Eve Wembanyama, sister of San Antonio Spurs sensation Victor (Wembanyama) in their ranks. First up for Ireland will be France at 16:15 on Friday afternoon, before they take on Clermont-Ferrand later that evening at 19:45. The top two sides in the three-team group qualify for the quarter-final stage.

Ireland have included four of the squad which reached the quarter-final stage of FIBA 3x3 Europe Cup qualifying in Kosovo last weekend  – Claire Melia, Enya Maguire, Áine O’Connor and Grainne Dwyer, while Katie Williamson and Lynn Tunnah have also come into contention for selection from the group that won a 3x3 invitational tournament in Scotland three days ago.

Head coach Colin O’Reilly said: “Our end goal as a team is to make it to an Olympics. With that, it’s massively important that we entered the FIBA 3x3 Women's World Series to allow us to play against the best teams in the world on a regular basis. Playing at the best level allows us to identify areas of improvement around our structures that will help the players firstly compete, and then win at this level.

We know it’s first step in a long journey but there is great excitement in the group that our first game ever at this level is against World Ranked number 3 French team on home soil."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Basketball Ireland (@basketball_ireland)

---

SQUAD

Claire Melia, Áine O'Connor, Katie Williamson, Enya Maguire, Grainne Dwyer Lynn Tunnah.

POOLS

Pool A: Canada, Austria, China U24
Pool B: France, Clermont-Ferrand, Ireland
Pool C: Germany, Gyor, Puerto Rico
Pool D: Azerbaijan, Netherlands, Philippines

---

Overall Competition Format

The FIBA Women's 3x3 Series is a global tour event which comprises of 20 stops around the world between April and August. The number of stops we will compete at during the calander is yet to be determined. Each team accumulates points based on their performance at each stop, with the top ranked teams qualifying for the finals, which take place in September.

*Our current confirmed stops are highlighted in bold.

Here is a full list of the scheduled events: 

• Clermont Ferrand (France) – June 14-15
• Orleans (France) – June 20-21
• Chengdu (China) – June 21-22
• Poitiers (France) – June 25-26
• Quebec (Canada) – June 29-30
• Wuhan (China) – June 29-30
• Fribourg (Switzerland) – July 4-5
• Edmonton (Canada) – July 5-6
• Bordeaux (France) – July 9-10
• Baoding (China) – July 12-13
• Pristina (Kosovo)– July 18-19
• Guba (Azerbaijan) – July 20-21
• Saskatoon (Canada) – August 17-18
• Baku (Azerbaijan) – August 17-18
• Debrecen (Hungary) – August 24-25 

Canada are the defending champions, while among the other 18 confirmed opponents include the United States, Spain, France, Thailand, Puerto Rico and Mongolia.