Captain Jamell Anderson was so convinced England Men’s 3×3 Basketball would defend their Commonwealth Games title he “wrote our names on the gold medal”.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s 3×3 Men\u2019s Basketball gold medal may not have been written in the stars, but for Jamell Anderson it was inscribed on a scrap of paper he kept in his kit-bag as motivation to secure back-to-back Commonwealth Games titles.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old, who won gold with a different set of team-mates at Birmingham 2022, took umbrage at suggestions the defending champions may be vulnerable despite winning all their five pool games and then beating New Zealand in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cListening to the commentary when we watched the games back, I heard them saying things like, \u2018Nobody expected England to beat New Zealand\u2019,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose were words we didn’t associate with, and they motivated us to go even harder.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always believed, 100%. Last time, I wrote it on the board in the house. I wrote our names on the gold medal. I did the same thing this time for Glasgow 2026.<\/p>\n
“As soon as we got to camp, I wrote it on a piece of paper. I’ve got it in my bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
A classic final saw Australia build a 9-6 lead but England drew level and a crucial two-pointer from Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye gave the defending champions a lead they refused to relinquish in a helter-skelter final three minutes before winning 19-17.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeart, man, heart got us through,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were loads of ups and downs but we stuck together the whole way through. We didn’t fall out once. We held each other accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘Heart and soul of our team’<\/p>\n
Scotland\u2019s Men had got Hall 4 of The SEC Centre rocking from the outset by taking bronze in the opening medal match, beating New Zealand 18-16 with nine points from Kyle Jimenez, who along with Fraser Malcolm had finished fourth at Birmingham 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cKyle is the heart and soul of our team,\u201d said Scotland\u2019s Skyler White.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s our motor, he keeps us going. I’m just grateful he\u2019s on our team because I\u2019d hate to play against him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hosts also won a superb silver in the Women\u2019s 3×3 Wheelchair Basketball.<\/p>\n
Led by player-coach Robyn Love, the Scots stunned 2022 silver medallists Australia in the semi-finals but were beaten 18-10 in the final by England, with Charlotte Moore, Joy Haizeldon and Jade Atkin all upgrading their bronze medals from four years ago.<\/p>\n
But England\u2019s Wheelchair Men had to settle for silver as Australia defended their title, with captain Luke Pople winning a second successive Commonwealth Games gold. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLuke is the head of the snake for us, he’s instrumental,\u201d said team-mate Tomas Klein.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s the one who calms us down during a timeout, organises us and pumps us up.\u201d<\/p>\n
One woman down… but Whittle steps up<\/p>\n
That was the first of two golds for Australia, who topped the 3×3 Basketball medal table with four in all, one more than England.<\/p>\n
Their second gold came in the final match of the night as Marena Whittle scored 15 points to lead Australia to a 21-11 victory over surprise package Uganda.<\/p>\n
The Gangurrus\u2019 achievement was all the more commendable given they had lost one of their quartet, Emma Clarke, to a knee injury, meaning the remaining trio of Whittle, Amy Atwell and Lara McSpadden played every minute of their semi-final and final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love pressure,\u201d said Whittle. \u201cI love these games. I love those crucial moments. I’ve been in a gold-medal match before and unfortunately it didn’t go our way.<\/p>\n
“This time, nothing was going to stop me from winning gold. We weren’t going to accept anything less. Whatever it took, I left it all out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uganda\u2019s Women fell short of ultimate glory but earned a superb silver in their debut Commonwealth Games after a brilliant performance to beat New Zealand 21-9 in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent an hour crying just because we’d made it to the final, but after that it was time to regroup,\u201d said Uganda\u2019s Melissa Akullu.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m just so proud of what we accomplished. Hopefully we’ll be back competing for gold at the next Commonwealth Games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captain Jamell Anderson was so convinced England Men’s 3×3 Basketball would defend their Commonwealth Games title he “wrote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85,83],"class_list":["post-832415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}