PARIS — The U.S. was eliminated from the 3×3 men’s basketball competition on Sunday at the Paris Olympics after finishing 2-5 in pool play while playing its last five games without star Jimmer Fredette.
“We fought hard, I think we just ran out of gas playing with three,” Canyon Barry said. “It’s so tough … my heart still breaks for Jimmer. It’s just not fair that someone of that high character has to go through this.”
Fredette was brought in to boost the team after it failed to qualify for the Tokyo Games, and his play helped the U.S. enter these Olympics as the No. 2 seed. But he sustained a lower extremity injury in the team’s second game and didn’t play again.
The U.S. opened pool play with four losses. Huge games by Barry, the son of Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Barry, lifted the team to wins over France and China before the Americans were eliminated Sunday with a 21-6 rout by the Netherlands.
The U.S. is left wondering what could have been if Fredette wasn’t injured.
“Most of our team is kind of centered on him offensively,” Canyon Barry said. “We run a lot of stuff through him. So when he goes out, we had to change the whole way we played.”
The U.S. had the same number of wins in pool play as Poland but lost the tiebreaker because Poland beat the U.S. in the second game of the tournament.
“It’s difficult because no matter if we’re down a man or anything like that, we expect to come and give our best possible performance, leave it all on the line, and I think we did that, so we can be proud of that,” Kareem Maddox said. “But it’s just not what the USA expects when it comes to basketball. So we’re not disappointed in our effort, we’re disappointed in the results.”
Despite the early exit, U.S. coach Joe Lewandowski is proud of the strides the team made after missing out on the last Olympics.
“Now, we have to keep building,” he said. “Anytime you come to events like this, it sets the stage for the future. You can take this and say … how can we get better, and that’s how you improve as a country and that’s what we do with USA Basketball.”
China also was eliminated after finishing 1-6 in pool play.
Defending champion Latvia and the Netherlands move to Monday’s semifinals after finishing first and second in pool play. Latvia won all seven games in pool play and the Netherlands went 5-2.
“The next important game is the semifinal, but our goal is the gold medal,” Latvia’s Nauris Miezis said. “Now we need to forget what happened in the last five days and focus on the semifinal.”
Sarunas Vingelis and Evaldas Dziaugys each scored nine points to lead Lithuania to a 21-15 win over Poland in the first play-in game Sunday night.
Jules Rambaut scored eight points to give France a 22-19 win over Tokyo bronze medalist Serbia in the other play-in game. France was up by one when Timothe Vergiat hit a 2-pointer to end it with eight seconds left and set off a wild celebration among the mostly French crowd.
Lithuania meets the Netherlands in the semifinals Monday and Latvia takes on France.