ORLANDO, Fla. - Former FHSU men's basketball standout Dominique Jones, member of the USA 3x3 Olympic Qualifying Team, began preparation for the FIBA 3x3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament scheduled for May 26-30 in Graz, Austria.
The team gathered on March 11 for the first of two training camps leading up to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in May.
Jones is one of the four members on the Olympic Qualifying Team. All four earned a spot on the qualifying team back in February of 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Olympic Qualifying Tournament and Tokyo Olympic Games to 2021. The team was just a couple weeks away from playing in the 2020 qualifying tournament in India before it was postponed. Fast forward a year later, the team will now get its shot at a spot in the Tokyo Olympic Games, now scheduled for July 23-August 8 of 2021.
There will be 20 teams competing at the 3x3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Austria. The top three teams in the tournament will qualify for Tokyo Olympic Games. The 20 teams are broken down into four groups of five. The U.S. is in Group B with Lithuania, Belgium, South Korea and Kazakhstan.
The 3x3 USA Men's Olympic Qualifying Team consists of Dominique Jones (Fort Hays State), Robbie Hummel (Purdue), Canyon Barry (Florida), and Kareem Maddox (Princeton). Jones, Hummel, and Maddox are the top-three ranked FIBA 3x3 men's players from the United States. Jones is the No. 1 ranked player from the United States in the FIBA 3x3 Individual Rankings, while holding a world ranking of No. 9.
Jones was an NCAA Division II All-America selection at Fort Hays State in 2011, while Hummel was an NCAA Division I All-America performer at Purdue University in 2010 and 2012 who went on to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA for two seasons. Barry was the CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year in 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 Jones and Barry is their unique free-throw shooting styles. As many FHSU fans remember, 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. Though both techniques are visually out of the norm, Jones and Barry are highly effective at their craft as both shot over 80 percent at the charity stripe in college.
Jones and Maddox were members of USA's 3x3 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.
In November of 2019, Jones was named the 2019 FIBA 3x3 World Tour Regular Season MVP.
Dominique Jones Team USA 3x3 Basketball Profile
Jones has enjoyed a tremendous professional career on the FIBA 3x3 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 3x3 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 3x3 World Tour events. Now he gets a chance to help Team USA qualify for the 2021 Olympics in 3x3 Basketball.