The U.S. women’s three-on-three program will defend its Olympic gold medal this summer in Paris, and for the first time, an American men’s team will be there too.

Both the women’s and men’s three-on-three programs from the U.S. qualified for the 2024 Olympics, according to an official announcement from FIBA on Wednesday. The top three teams on each side as of Oct. 31 received automatic bids to Paris, and the U.S. women and men are both currently ranked second.

The sport made its debut at the Tokyo Olympics. The American women took gold over Russia; the U.S. men failed to qualify in 2021.

We’re In 🇫🇷 @Paris2024!

The U.S. Men & Women are QUALIFIED for the 2024 Olympic Games! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/SrvrI3dZKk

— USA Basketball 3×3 (@usab3x3) November 1, 2023

This year, USA Basketball’s women’s three-on-three team of Cameron Brink, Hailey Van Lith, Cierra Burdick and Linnae Harper won the World Cup in Vienna in June; the men’s team of Jimmer Fredette, Canyon Barry, Kareem Maddox and Dylan Travis finished second.

That same foursome on the men’s side won its second FIBA 3×3 World Tour Master’s event of the season last weekend in Abu Dhabi, as well as the Pan-Am Games in Chile earlier this month, which helped the U.S. secure an Olympic bid. The American women’s program also won the Pan-Am Games, with a team of Burdick, Azurá Stevens, Blake Dietrick and Lexie Hull.

The rankings are based not on team finishes per se, but on how individual players from all the participating countries fare at FIBA-sanctioned three-on-three events all over the world — which explains how the U.S. teams could have so many wins at high-profile tournaments but still be ranked second.

On the women’s side, China is ahead of the U.S., which is ahead of host France; on the men’s side, the Americans are behind Serbia and ahead of the Chinese. The Olympic 3×3 tournament will take place from July 30 to Aug. 5 on a court constructed at Place de la Concorde in Paris.

The next order of business for USA Basketball is to identify its pools of potential three-on-three players for the Olympics, select coaches and set timelines for picking teams. Two of the four players on each team must be ranked in the top 10 among the country’s three-on-three players, per FIBA’s rankings, and two must have played in at least one FIBA-sanctioned three-on-three event in the last year.

Fredette (a college superstar and former NBA player), Barry (son of NBA legend Rick Barry), Maddox and Travis figure to get a strong look to represent the U.S., given their on-court success and sheer number of tournaments together; the women’s selection process could be more expansive, as only one player (Burdick) was on the American women’s World Cup and Pan-Am teams.

Under new Olympic rules for 3×3 eligibility, the U.S. team from Tokyo of WNBA stars Kelsey Plum, Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray, and Jackie Young would not be able to defend their gold medals as a team, as none of them are ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. Latvia won gold in the men’s 3×3 tournament at the Tokyo games.

USA Basketball is the first federation to qualify four teams for Paris, as the men’s and women’s national teams for traditional basketball have also already qualified.

The 3×3 game is played entirely in the half court with a 10-minute game clock and 12-second shot clock. The winner is the first team to 21 points, or, of course, the team with more points at the final buzzer, if neither team gets to 21.

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(Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty)