Toronto Begin New 3x3 Season in Lausanne: Full Report
FIBA began the first event of the 2023 3x3 World Tour in their own back yard. Over the course of a late April weekend the Swiss city Lausanne hosted the first SuperQuest of the year, with places in the upcoming Manila Masters up for grabs.
One of the twelve teams vying for a guaranteed place on the World Tour was Canadian club Toronto.
First to represent Canada this year were veterans Alex Johnson and Jordan Jensen-Whyte, joined by Bikramjit Gill, seen last year represent Canada at the AmeriCup, and Nemanja Mitrovic, making his World Tour debut.
Day one consisted of the Pool stage, with room for only the top two in each of the four groups advancing through to the knockout round the next day. Toronto opened being matched shot-for-shot by their first opponents Barcelona, though Mitrovic's accuracy from beyond the arc keeping the Canadian team in front.
With the Spanish team trailing by four as time started to wind down, Guim Expositio hit six in a row for Barcelona to make it a single-possession game. Successive two-pointers from the Spanish suddenly saw the scores tied, but Toronto kept their cool and Gill and Johnson hit from the low post to succinctly see out the win 21-19.
In their second pool game, Paris had the early lead but Toronto were keeping it close with their outside shooting. After two minutes the Canadians had their first lead of the game, and then went four clear of the Parisians after five minutes.
Alex Viaralet and Vincent Fauche closed the gap to one as the game entered the final stretch but the Canadian team reinforced their lead and held off Paris in the last minute for another two-point win for Toronto, 18-16.
Toronto finished day one top of Pool C and they advanced to the quarter finals to face another French team, Ermont, who finished Pool A in second place.
After a back-and-forth start, Toronto went from down two to up by three in the space of a minute.
With Mitrovic deadly accurate from deep and the rest of the team getting it done from close range, Toronto had all but won after a 7-1 run and Gill closed out the scoring 18-10 in his team's favour.
This saw them advance to the semi-final where waiting for them were San Juan, who were on an amazing run in Lausanne, having just seen off veteran side Liman en route to the final four.
Johnson and Jensen-Whyte opened the scoring for Toronto, but the Puerto Ricans responded with five unanswered points, with Adrian Ocasio continuing to build their lead both in and outside the arc.
Everyone on Toronto did everything they could to stop the lead getting away from them, but they could not contain relentless offence from San Juan.
Mitrovic and Johnson's two-point shooting got Toronto to within three, but Ocasio and Antonio Ralat put the game to bed with half a minute to go with them winners by seven. It was all over for Toronto but San Juan rolled into the final, where they claimed the top prize at the conclusion of a two-point thriller against Dusseldorf.
Toronto had fallen just short of a spot on the Manila Masters, but despite the disappointment Mitrovic was the team's leading scorer on his debut and Toronto finished among the top five scoring teams in Lausanne. Their first performance of the season showed this is a team full of promise and there is a lot more to come from them in 2023.
Comments