bmo

First day of the FIBA 3x3 Champions Cup is tomorrow in Thailand. The Champions of each continent qualify + host nation + world cup winner + an addition team via world ranking. Pretty similar to the old FIFA Confederations Cup in soccer. This event has Olympic qualifying implications for other nations via the world ranking. Games will be on FIBA 3x3 YouTube channel. It's a round-robin format. 2 pools of 4 teams each per gender. Here is USA's schedule for the two days of pool play. Friday: Men vs 7:30 a.m. LINK Men vs 9:30 a.m. LINK Women vs 10:20 a.m. LINK Saturday: Women vs 7:30 a.m. LINK Women vs 9:30 a.m. LINK Men vs 10:20 a.m. LINK Semifinals and medal matches are on Sunday.

Logan Webb will start

It's unlikely, but possible. USA pitching is not that great imo. Canada will probably have to score 6+ runs to have a chance, but it's definitely possible.

110-46 Comfortable win in what's basically a friendly for our women's team as we are already qualified for the World Cup. Clark had 17 points and 12 assists. We play tonight at 8 p.m. ET on TruTV

I'm thankful we got through. Didn't really care who we play out of Pool A. I don't think any team is Pool A is a threat to win the WBC. Italy is probably better than all the teams in Pool A.

Interested to see Caitlyn Clark in a USA uniform for the first time.

Very disappointing loss which makes tomorrow's game between Italy and Mexico very interesting. USA didn't wake up until the 6th and it was too late. Pitching wasn't great, there were defensive errors and hitting didn't come alive until they were 8-0 down. If this team gets eliminated in pool play....

An win over will send to the QF. If wins, USA needs it to be high-scoring to have a chance...

Congrats!

Italy now leads 8-0 heading to the bottom of the 6th inning. USA fans are booing the performance.

pitching has given up three home runs so far. hitting has done nothing. A big defensive throwing error leads to an Italy run. Just an uninspiring performance by the Americans so far. 6-0 in the 6th inning USA could realistically miss the knockout stage if beats tomorrow.

Awesome story! I was introduced to all the Olympic sports in the mid 2010s (Sochi 2014 for winter & Rio 2016 for summer were the first two Olympics I really paid attention to. Started to follow the qualification process and started watching/looking at results of pro circuits/world champs for some of my favorite sports in the leadup to Paris and Milano Cortina. I'm just starting to learn a bit about the new Olympic sports. I think I got cricket T20 down. I watched the full T20 world cup final match from 2024. I can see how some people say its like baseball, but it is very different. Need to learn Squash and Coastal Rowing in the next two years as those are the only two sports I'm totally unfamiliar with.

Interesting that you like sport climbing so much. Did you just recently get into it after Tokyo 2020? Or have you always liked it even before it was in the Olympics?

Yeah all the new team sports have 6 teams. Squash only will have 16 entries per gender. I think they could've made an exception for baseball though. It's super popular in America. Venue should be packed for a lot of the games, especially for USA and other American nations. I think it's a miss by the IOC to not have 10-12 teams to ensure that Mexico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and more American nations have a good chance to get in. Those nations have a large population in LA and would fill the venue.

The WBC has 4 venues. LA has one.

At least it isn't as bad as our World Cup soccer schedule 9 pm, 3 pm on a work day and 10 pm on a weeknight

The 6 teams is very disappointing, but I think there would be no chance the MLB would allow players is the competition took the entire length of the Olympics. Giving players one week off is manageable, two weeks is near impossible from the MLB perspective. IOC probably had to decide between having 8-12 teams w/o MLB players or 6 teams with possibly having MLB players.

Home Runs by Judge & Anthony!! with an impressive 5-0 lead early in the game!

I wouldn’t say that. and are both beatable teams.

Looks like top 4 of 6 get promoted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_SVNS_2

Should be an exciting year for the men's team with some big friendlies and the WC!

Might be time for Paxton to head back to retirement...

First home run of the WBC!!

Best chance to medal is Beiwen Zhang. Really hope she makes it further than she did in Tokyo and Paris.

Yes! Thank you for the qualifying thread! That is a big help.