By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Feb. 17, 2020) – USA Basketball announced its 2020 Men’s and Women’s 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament teams, which includes four men and four women. Former FHSU Men’s Basketball standout Dominique Jones was one of four players named to the men’s team. A total of 16 men were invited to training camp Feb. 13-14 in Chicago and Jones emerged as one of four players chosen with the task of qualifying the United States for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
USA Basketball Official Release
2020 USA 3×3 Qualifying Team Profiles
The 2020 FIBA 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament will be March 18-22 in Bengaluru, India. The top three finishing men’s and women’s 3×3 teams will earn berths into the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games 3×3 basketball competition.
3×3 basketball is played on a half court with a 10-minute clock, and a 12-second shot clock, the first team to 21 points, or the team in the lead at the end of regulation.
As per FIBA regulations, all teams taking part in the FIBA 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament must include at least two athletes ranked among the federation’s top 10 FIBA 3×3 athletes.
Jones will join Canyon Barry, Robbie Hummel, and Kareem Maddox as the four players to represent the United States. Jones, Hummel, and Maddox are the top three ranked FIBA 3×3 men’s players from the United States. Jones is currently the No. 1 ranked player from the United States in the FIBA 3×3 World Rankings, while holding a world ranking of No. 9.
Jones was an All-America performer at Fort Hays State in 2011, while Hummel was an All-America performer at Purdue University in 2010 and 2012 and went on to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA for two seasons. Barry was the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year for NCAA Division I at the University of Florida in 2017 and currently plays for the Iowa Wolves of the NBA G League. Maddox was an all-conference performer and conference defensive player of the year at Princeton University in 2011.
An interesting note about two of the four chosen to the USA 3×3 Qualifying Team for 2020 is their unique free-throw shooting styles. As many FHSU fans remember, Dominique Jones shoots his free throws one-handed, without placing a guide hand on the ball. Canyon Barry, son of NBA Hall of Famer Rick Barry, shoots his free throws underhand just like his father did.
Jones and Maddox were members of USA’s 3×3 Team that won the Gold Medal at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru in the summer of 2019. See Story
Maddox, Hummel, and Barry were all part of USA’s 2019 FIBA World Cup Gold Medal Team.
Recently in November of 2019, Jones was named the 2019 FIBA 3×3 World Tour Regular Season MVP. See Release
Dominique Jones Team USA 3×3 Basketball Profile
Jones has enjoyed a tremendous professional career on the FIBA 3×3 World Tour. He currently holds the No. 1 national ranking in the FIBA points system for players from the United States on the World Tour, and sits among the top 10 players in the world. Jones has helped his 3×3 team from New York/Harlem to several team titles in FIBA World Tour tournaments over the past few years.
Jones was a two-year standout player at Fort Hays State, helping the Tigers to NCAA Tournament appearances in 2009-10 and 2010-11 as the team’s point guard. He nearly scored 1,000 points in his two years, finishing with 983. He also averaged 5.1 assists per game in his career, fifth-best in program history with a total of 324. With his unique one-handed free-throw shooting style, Jones shot 80 percent at the line in his career at FHSU. He shot 40.2 percent from beyond the 3-point line, draining 132 shots from long range.
Jones was an NABC All-America selection as a senior in 2010-11 with 592 points and 207 assists for the season (17.9 ppg, 6.3 apg). He was a two-time All-MIAA First Team selection and helped guide the Tigers to an MIAA Tournament Championship in 2011. He helped the team to a record of 49-14 over the two years, reaching No. 3 in the NABC national rankings both seasons. He is one of four players to earn All-America honors under current FHSU head coach Mark Johnson. Prior to his time at FHSU, Jones was a two-time all-region performer at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, a member of the NJCAA.
Following his time at FHSU, Jones went on to play professional basketball in Europe before returning to the United States. He enjoyed a brief stint with the Harlem Globetrotters in the summer of 2015 before turning his focus to traveling the world playing in FIBA 3×3 World Tour events. Now he gets a chance to help Team USA qualify for the 2020 Olympics in 3×3 Basketball.
