3 Utah Jazz players advance to the FIBA World Cup quarter-finals

The Utah Jazz will have three players competing for the FIBA World Cup.

The Utah Jazz had the honor of sending five players to the FIBA World Cup this year, who in turn would go on to represent five different countries; Canada, Finland, Italy, the Philippines, and the United States. Those five players were dubbed (by us) as the FIBA 5, and they contained power forward/center Kelly Olynyk, forward Lauri Markkanen, forward Simone Fontecchio, guard Jordan Clarkson, and center Walker Kessler respectively.

Now, after five games and two rounds, we now know which players are going to the tournament round of the games. We already knew that Clarkson and Markkanen had been eliminated in the first round, but both men would go on to have far better showings in the classification group play.

Clarkson went 1-1 with the Philippines to close out their run at 1-4, while Markkanen would sweep the classification round, going 2-0 and finishing 2-3 overall.

That meant that Olynyk, Kessler, and Fontecchio would be the only teams moving to the second round.

Italy would be one of the first teams to book their tickets to the third round, the quarter-finals, despite losing to the Dominican Republic. They went 2-0 in the second round of group play, beating Serbia and Puerto Rico, partly due to Fontecchio, who dropped 30 points against a very game Serbia.

Team Canada found themselves on the verge of elimination after being upset by Brazil to start the second round with a score of 69-65. Then, Canada had to face off with a very game Germany, who nearly defeated the once-mighty Canadian squad. Thankfully for Canada though, they eeked out an 88-85 victory behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his 30-point game. Their reward is to face off with Slovenia and the dreaded Luka Doncic.

Lastly, the United States secured their third-round entrance by defeating Montenegro, but with the quarter-finals a lock, the US was unable to beat Lithuania, who saw seven of their players hit double-digits. The US only had four players, one of whom was Anthony Edwards, who dropped 35 points. Had the Utah Jazz’s Walker Kessler played more than six minutes, who knows how the game would’ve gone?

The US will have to face a tough Italian team, meaning one more Jazz player is for certain going home. Here’s the rest of the scheduled tournament games;

• Italy vs. US – Sept. 5
• Germany vs. Latvia Sept. 6
• The winners of those two games will meet on Sept. 8.
• Lithuania vs. Serbia Sept. 5
• Canada vs. Slovenia Sept. 6
• The winner of those two games will meet on Sept. 8.