The New Zealand men’s team, the self-proclaimed \u201ctwo-point nation\u201d certainly lived up to the hype at the FIBA 3×3 U23 World Cup in Xiong’an.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were lights out from the jump as they took a commanding hold of proceedings in pool play. They started out with a 21 – 14 win over Egypt. Joshua Cook and Christian Martin caught fire from deep, making 3 two-pieces each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If their scoring was on display in their first game, their clutchness shined in their second game against France. A close game for the most part, New Zealand seemed to have it in control before a miraculous shot from France took the game to overtime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It came down to the man of the moment, Christian Martin, who had scored 10 points in the game up until that point, put the game to bed with a hustle play to score the putback. New Zealand showed just how dangerous they can be tonight as they now sit comfortable in pool stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ladies from Spain were also all business in pool play tonight as they made quick work of their opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They took down Chile in their opener, a 21 – 6 victory led by Marta Garcia and Begona De Santiago who combined for 13 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a similar tale when they faced off against Mexico, a 21 – 11 win this time with De Santiago and Elena Moreno Fernandez combining for 15 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain seem to be in their groove as they look to close out pool play on a high, come Saturday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Serbian men had split results on the day, but there was no denying the dynamic star Vuk Vuke\u0107evi\u0107. He was aggressive in their narrow OT loss to Czechia, putting up 10 points and 3 two pointers as he made his mark early.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They swept past France in their final game of the day where he put up a team-high 8 points in their 21 – 9 victory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Serbian star seemed to be in his element today and if Serbia hope to live up to their lofty name within 3×3, Vuk might be their answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Liselot Kulk aka \u201cthe Incredible Kulk\u201d was also in an undeniable mood in the women’s competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutch took on a lethal Czechia side in their opener, a battle that went down to the wire. In one of the most frenzied finishes of the day, Czechia tied the game up with seconds to go with a two before the Dutch star answered with an ice-cold dagger to seal the game in favor of the Netherlands, 16 – 14. She wrapped up a 10-point game with heroics to start the Dutch off in style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a slower start to her game against Uganda next, but sticking to their strengths eventually paid dividends. Kulk held her own defensively and notched 6 points in their 20 – 9 win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kulk was crucial to their success today as the Dutch will look to her deliver as they have their sights set on Gold. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The New Zealand men’s team, the self-proclaimed \u201ctwo-point nation\u201d certainly lived up to the hype at the FIBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,7],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-3434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-newsbeat","tag-3-x-3"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a> Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/New-Zeland-beat-Egypt_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3436,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions\/3436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}