By Sarah Dyce

Fast and furious basketball returns to SEC Centre Hall 4 for its second Commonwealth Games, with Australia fielding all four Gangurrus and Wombats teams, 16 athletes spanning an age gap of 24 years between its youngest and most experienced.

Overview

Australia’s 16-strong basketball (3×3) contingent is spread evenly across four teams of four: the men’s and women’s Basketball (3×3) squads, known as the Gangurrus, and the men’s and women’s Wheelchair Basketball (3×3) squads, the Wombats. Twelve of the 16 are Commonwealth Games debutants, with four returning from Birmingham 2022.

At 16, Ebony Stevenson is not just the youngest athlete in the squad, she’s the youngest on the entire Wombats roster. At the other end of the squad, Jesse Wagstaff, 40, is preparing for his third Commonwealth Games. Western Australia leads the state representation with six athletes, followed by four from New South Wales, two each from Victoria and Queensland, and one each from the Northern Territory and South Australia.

Ones to Watch

Australia

Wagstaff’s Commonwealth Games story has evolved with the sport itself. He won gold with the full-court Boomers on the Gold Coast in 2018, then returned four years later to win silver with the 3×3 Gangurrus at Birmingham 2022. Glasgow will be his third Games and his second in the 3×3 format, a rare through-line connecting two different eras of Australian basketball at this level.

Stevenson’s presence at the other end of the experience scale gives Australia’s Wombats a genuine generational spread heading into Glasgow, on a squad otherwise built almost entirely from debutants.

Australia’s form heading into the Games is strong. The women’s team went agonisingly close to a first FIBA 3×3 World Cup title in Warsaw in June, losing 21-20 to the United States in the final for the nation’s best-ever finish at the event. The men finished 19th at the same tournament. On the wheelchair side, Australia’s women finished third and the men fifth at last year’s inaugural IWBF 3×3 World Championships, both behind Canada.

International

Tyler Baines gets a rare second consecutive home Commonwealth Games, but not with the same team. He won bronze with England’s 3×3 Wheelchair Basketball side at Birmingham 2022, and has since switched allegiance to Scotland, the country of his heritage, ahead of Glasgow.

Sport Format

Basketball (3×3) is played on a half court with a single basket. Games last just 10 minutes with no half-time or quarters, and play continues even after a basket is scored. Each team has four players, three on court and one substitute, and the winner is whoever reaches 21 points first or holds the lead when time expires.

Wheelchair Basketball (3×3) follows the same core format, with a player permitted to wheel their chair and bounce the ball at the same time. If the ball is picked up or rests on a player’s lap, they’re allowed only two pushes of the chair before they must shoot, pass or dribble again, or a travelling violation is called. Each wheelchair player carries a classification number, and a team’s total classification points on court can’t exceed 8.5 at any time.

The two Wheelchair Basketball (3×3) tournaments have expanded to eight teams each since Birmingham 2022, up from six, split into two groups of four. Every team plays the other three in its group, with the top team in each group advancing straight to the semi-finals, while the second and third-placed teams play cross-over quarter-finals for the two remaining semi-final spots. The two semi-final winners play for gold, and the two losers meet for bronze.

The two Basketball (3×3) tournaments have grown further still, expanding to 12 teams each over the same period, up from eight at Birmingham 2022. Every tournament still moves through pool play into the same knockout finish: semi-finals, a bronze medal contest and a gold medal final on the last day of competition.

Field goals are worth one point from inside the 6.75m arc or two points from outside it, and free throws are worth one point. A 12-second shot clock governs each possession, and after a basket is scored, possession switches immediately: the non-scoring team must clear the ball from under the basket back behind the arc before attempting to score again.

Scotland qualified as hosts. Australia qualified as the top-ranked Oceania nation in both Men’s and Women’s Basketball (3×3), and through an Asia-Pacific qualifier for both Wheelchair Basketball (3×3) tournaments. The rest of the field was decided through a mix of world rankings, regional qualifiers and bipartite invitations, while a Home Nations Qualifier determined whether England, Wales or Northern Ireland would take Great Britain’s single qualification spot across all four tournaments.

Competition Schedule

Basketball (3×3) and Wheelchair Basketball (3×3) run from Friday 24 July to Wednesday 29 July 2026 at SEC Centre Hall 4, comprising 13 sessions across four gold medals, one for each tournament.

Fast Facts

• Basketball has featured at three Commonwealth Games: Melbourne 2006 and Gold Coast 2018 both staged the traditional five-a-side game, before Birmingham 2022 introduced the 3×3 format. Australia has won at least one basketball gold medal at every Games it’s featured.
• Wheelchair Basketball is one of the oldest Para sports in the world, a core sport at the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960.
• 3×3 Basketball made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020.
• Australia leads the all-time Commonwealth Games basketball medal table across all formats, with eight medals including five gold.