Hoop It Up Pro Am 2022 Champions Omaha 3BALL has qualified for the FIBA 3x3 Abu Dhabi Final to be held December 10th-11th. Coming off their 3rd place performance at the FIBA Riyadh event, Omaha has accumulated 182 points this season placing 10th in the FIBA 3x3 international standings. In August, Omaha won their first FIBA 3x3 Tour event in Quebec. Team members Dylan Travis, Malik Hluchoweckyj, Klay Rowe and Mitchell Hahn will be making the trek to Abu Dhabi.

Mitchell Hahn will be providing regular updates exclusively to HoopItUp.com during the team’s travel and preparations for the tournament.

Sunday November 27th

This was our first practice as we get ready for the World Tour Championship. We did some shooting and conditioning. When we don’t have enough guys to scrimmage, we like to keep it short but intense. Staying sharp on our actions is key as we get ready. Most of our drills are our actions that we do in the games. We ended the day with some 1 on 1 to add some competition. First day went really well and we are excited as the days get closer.

Tuesday November 29th

We started off practice with some shooting games, which is a great way for us to get warmed up. We are able to get guys from around Omaha to come scrimmage us. This is a huge plus for us as we get ready. The scrimmages allow for us to practice different strategies that we might use for the games. Our focus was high for practice as we executed well. It is important for us to play as close to game level as we can so we can stay sharp for the tournament.

Sunday December 4th

Today was one of our best practices of the season. We had great energy from the beginning and it translated into our scrimmages. With the tournament inching closer, it is important to be on top of everything. We pushed ourselves so we can be ready for anything that may come up. Once again we had great competition and we can’t thank those guys enough for giving us a great look before we leave. I think this is the best we have looked since Canada. Our intensity in practices might be toned down this week, but our focus will not be.

Friday December 9th

Today was our travel day. We took one flight to Chicago and then a 13 hour flight to Abu Dhabi. Most times we do not have time to be a tourist but we had a couple hours when we landed. We walked to the venue for the games tomorrow and then visited a bunch of the local places around it. I am a big F1 fan so we walked to the race track that is here. We are ready for the games tomorrow. 2 tough opponents, but nothing we haven’t seen already.


Saturday December 10th

We started the day off with a good practice. We like to get a sweat going especially on these long trips. After we get going for 15 minutes, we usually just play shooting games for the rest of the practice time. Just finding time to enjoy playing basketball across the world.
Our first game was against Liman, the #2 ranked team in the world. We were ready to go from the beginning and played with more intensity and passion. Which helped us to a victory to start pool play.
Our second game was against Vienna, the #7 team in the world and what we brought to the first game, they did to us in our game against them. We were a little flat and we didn’t have enough juice to win.
Going 1-1 in pool play, we moved on to day 2. We play Amsterdam in the first round and we haven’t beat them yet this season so we are excited to get a chance to play them. Top 8 teams in the world are left, and 3 wins get us the championship.