The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

TEAM Bahamas will face Canada, The Dominican Republic, and The US Virgin Islands in the first round of qualifying for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023.

The aforementioned teams were drawn into Group C during Tuesday’s official ceremony.

Group A includes Argentina, Venezuela, Panama, and Paraguay; Group B includes Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile; while Group D includes The United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Cuba.

Sixteen teams will compete in the Americas region, vying for seven spots. In the first round, teams are divided into four groups and each team will play against each other in their own group. The top three teams from each group will qualify for the second round of qualifiers.

In the second round, the 12 teams that qualified will be divided into two groups of six (E and F).

Each team will play against the three new teams in its own group. Subsequently, the three best teams from each group, and the fourth-placed team, will qualify for the World Cup.

In FIBA World Rankings, The Bahamas is ranked at No.59 and No.12 in the Americas region. Canada is the highest-ranked team in the group at No. 18 and No.5 in the region while The Dominican Republic is ranked at No. 20 internationally and No.7 in the region. USVI is ranked at No.52 in the world and No.11 in the region.

The home-and-away series begins in November and the Bahamas opens competition against Canada, November 26 and 29. In the second window, The Bahamas will face The USVI on February 24, 2022, and The Dominican Republic on February 27, 2022.

In the third and final window, The Bahamas will have its second matchup against The USVI on July 1, 2022, and will conclude with the second matchup against The Dominican Republic on July 4, 2022.

The FIBA World Cup 2023 will take place August 25 to September 10 in multiple countries for the first time - Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines.

In the last FIBA World Cup, held in China in 2019, the Americas region was represented by Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

The Bahamas played their way into the competition after an undefeated record at the Americas Pre-Qualifiers in El Salvador in July.

They finished 3-0 with wins over Cuba, Costa Rica and El Salvador. The Bahamas opened the tournament in thrilling fashion as they rallied from an 18-point fourth quarter deficit to defeat Cuba 89-88. In game two, Bahamas dominated Costa Rica 75-51 and concluded with an 87-79 win over El Salvador.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 competition system consists of six windows played over 15 months across the four regions of Africa, Americas, Asia/Oceania and Europe. Each qualification window lasts nine days, with the windows running from November 2021 to February 2023.

A total of 80 countries are left vying to be among the 32 teams at the 2023 World Cup.

The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 will qualify teams directly for Paris 2024 Olympic Games or through four FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.