Argentinian men and the French women earned statement wins on Day 3 of the FIBA 3×3 U23 World Cup in Xiong’an, China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t easy, but Argentina came through to book their place in the knockout rounds.They battled down to the wire against Italy, coming away with a narrow loss. The pressure was now on them to deliver in the final pool game of the day against a gritty Venezuela side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Venezuela brought the physicality and took the fight to their opposition, but Argentina were game for it all. Santino Mazzucchelli, who had been stellar all tournament, delivered a clutch performance as his 9 points proved to be key to them earning a much-needed victory to seal their place in the Quarter-final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While they didn\u2019t go perfect on the day, their tenacity and spirit shone through as they now aim to carry over their recent win all the way to a deep run in the knockout stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Les Bleus were sitting at the women’s top heading into the deciding pool games today, but things were far from settled.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were pitted against Poland in their opening game, another side in the pool that stood unbeaten. In what was essentially a battle for the top spot, France dominated. They came away with a 21 – 11 victory thanks to a tandem scoring effort while holding down their opposition from catching fire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They made easy work of Algeria with a 22 – 8 win, closing out pool play in blistering fashion, just how they started. They now head into the Quarter-final with momentum firmly on their side and a clear message to the rest of the competition that they\u2019re coming for Gold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile Lorenzo Piccin was undoubtedly Italy’s hero today. Finding themselves in a tough spot after splitting results in their initial pool games, Italy needed to sweep the day for a comfortable place in the knockout rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They handled business against Algeria where Piccin put up a team-high 7 points, scoring from all levels to lead his side to the win. However, it was the battle against Argentina where he would truly shine. In a back-and-forth frenzy, Piccin answered every single time. With time winding down and scores level at 19 apiece, Piccin drilled an ice-cold dagger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He finished the game with 11 points as Italy earned a Quarter-final berth thanks to the sharpshooter\u2019s efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When needed most, Momoka Hanashima came in clutch in the women’s competiton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a rough game for the star from Japan to start off Day 3 action against China, she turned it around with a heroic performance in their game against Italy <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finding themselves down 18 – 13 with less than a minute to go, Hanashima went lights out. She drilled back-to-back twos before drawing the foul that took her to the line where she put the game to bed. A flurry of 6 points turned the tides in favor of Japan. She finished with 10 points and all the plaudits as they finished pool play unbeaten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
QUARTER-FINAL MATCHUPS <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n MEN<\/strong>: CROATIA v ITALY; ARGENTINA v LITHUANIA<\/p>\n\n\n\n WOMEN<\/strong>: JAPAN v POLAND; FRANCE v CHINA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Argentinian men and the French women earned statement wins on Day 3 of the FIBA 3×3 U23 World<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3454,"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":[94,52],"class_list":["post-3453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-newsbeat","tag-3-x-3","tag-basketball"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3.jpg",1800,1012,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3.jpg",1800,1012,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/argentina-3-x-3-590x410.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\/argentina-3-x-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453","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=3453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3455,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions\/3455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}