City celebrates local heroes on Day 1 of Lausanne Masters

LAUSANNE (2015 FIBA 3x3 World Tour) – It was the first-time ever a local team was at the FIBA 3x3 World Tour Lausanne Masters and Team Lausanne (SUI) did not disappoint, winning two nail-biters on Day 1 to the delight of the Swiss fans.

With limited experience in 3x3, Team Lausanne was the last seed in the tournament but with a little help from thousands of fans, they first defeated Gdansk (POL) in overtime (22-20) on an Oliver Vogt long-range bomb. They followed up with a scrappy against Utrecht (NED) (12-11).

Speaking of Gdansk, the team out of Poland defeated Utrecht securing a spot in the quarter-finals, meaning we get to see more of Michael 'Money in the Bank' Hicks who stole the show with 27 points in just two games, 10 points more than any other player.

Trbovlje (SLO) was the only team not to suffer an upset on Friday though their narrow win against Malaga (14-13) was a lot less impressive than their initial triumph over Bucharest (21-10).

In Pool A, the 2013 FIBA 3x3 World Tour winners from Ljubljana - who have already earned their ticket to the Abu Dhabi Final - were stunned in the first game of the day by Zemun (SRB). The muscular Nikola Vukovic looked more like an MMA fighter but actually showed some finesse en route to a team-high 13 points.

Ovidijus Varanauskas paced Vilnius (LTU) with 16 points, including some tough clutch shots and a couple of dazzling cross-overs. The Baltic side also showed some guts coming from behind in both games against Domzale (SLO) and Tunis (TUN) which they won on the same score (17-15).

Tomorrow's schedule from 17.30 local time (GMT+2):

Zemun (SRB 8) – Gdansk (POL, 5)
Vilnius (LTU, 6) – Malaga (ESP, 10)
Trbovlje (SLO, 2) – Domzale (SLO, 3)
Lausanne (SUI, 12) – Ljubljana (SLO, 1)

Games will be available live on FIBA 3x3's official YouTube channel.

Italian dunker Marco Favretto dominated the CityCable Dunk Contest Qualifier, with a wild windmill dunk and will get a chance to meet pro dunkers Kristaps Dargais and Rafal 'Lipek' Lipinski tomorrow in the final.

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