The Korean men’s and women’s 3×3 national team accepted the worst grouping ever.
FIBA (International Basketball Federation) announced the grouping of the ‘FIBA 3×3 Asia Cup 2023’ through its official website. The FIBA 3×3 Asia Cup 2023 will be held at OCBC Square in Singapore from March 29 to April 2.
This 3×3 Asia Cup has a strong character as a prelude to prepare for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games scheduled to be held in September. In particular, the winning team of this competition will also be given a ticket to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics 3×3 qualifying round, so teams with low FIBA 3×3 national rankings plan to challenge their country’s professional players to compete. 스포츠토토
Korea, which advanced to the men’s quarterfinals and was eliminated in the women’s qualifying draw at last year’s 3×3 Asian Cup, failed to secure points that were reflected in the FIBA 3×3 national rankings, and both men and women were assigned to the lower seed. Due to the nature of FIBA 3×3, if you fail to accumulate points during the season, you will inevitably be at a disadvantage in the national competition, but Korea, with budget issues at the forefront, was indifferent to securing points.
On the 8th, in the 3×3 Asia Cup 2023 seed rankings announced by FIBA, Korea ranked 15th out of 24 men and 15th out of 19 women.
As expected, the Korean men’s and women’s 3×3 national team, which received a seed that was difficult to go directly to the main draw with 12 teams, started the 3×3 Asian Cup in a separate qualifying draw.
However, the group composition is the worst ever.
In the case of men, Mongolia, China, Japan, and Australia, including host Singapore, went directly to the main draw, while Korea was assigned to Group B of the qualifying draw along with New Zealand, Turkmenistan, and Tonga. A total of 16 teams are divided into 4 groups of 4 teams. In the men’s qualifying draw, only the first place in each group advances to the main draw where 12 teams compete and can challenge to advance to the quarterfinals.
New Zealand, which we have to face, is a strong team that finished runners-up in the 2017 and 2022 3×3 Asian Cups.
As Turkmenistan and Tonga are considered inferior teams, Korea must catch New Zealand to look forward to advancing to the main draw. However, it seems too greedy for Korea, which has not yet formed a national team, to catch New Zealand, the runner-up in the last tournament.
If the men’s 3×3 national team catches New Zealand and passes the qualifying draw, they will be placed in Group B of the main draw and compete against Australia, who has won three consecutive 3×3 Asian Cup champions, and Japan, a strong Asian 3×3 team, to advance to the quarterfinals.
In the case of women, they have to break through more fierce competition. A total of 19 teams participated in this 3×3 Asia Cup, and unlike men, 10 teams went directly to the main draw. The remaining nine teams were drawn into Qualifying Draw Groups A and B to compete for the main draw, while Korea was placed in Qualifying Draw Group B along with Australia, Kazakhstan and New Caledonia.
Australia won the 3×3 Asian Cup in 2017 and 2019, and are more likely to win the championship last time as runners-up. In Korea, which has no experience in 3×3 international competitions, I met the worst opponent.
It’s not just Australia. In the case of Kazakhstan, it is a strong team that cannot be ignored in the 2019 3×3 Asia Cup, where it faced Australia in the final and finished runner-up. For the Korean women’s 3×3 national team, it is the worst grouping that does not even show a breathing hole.
It is a hopeless grouping for the Korean women’s 3×3 national team, which was also eliminated in the qualifying draw in the last tournament. If the Korean women’s 3×3 national team passes the qualifying draw, they will be placed in Group D of the main draw and compete against Thailand and Qatar to advance to the quarterfinals.
Korea, which received the worst grouping ever, has yet to finalize the composition of its national team until the 40th day before the tournament.