France's Historic Three-Point Barrage Against Nigeria

France did not just win a group game. They detonated it from beyond the arc.

In a ruthless perimeter shooting display at the Women's FIBA World Cup, the French national team buried Nigeria under a blizzard of three-pointers, hitting a historic 22 threes in a 111-56 rout and setting a new tournament record.

They did it with volume and with venom. Forty attempts from deep. Twenty-two makes. Fifty-five percent from long range on a World Cup stage.

By halftime, the damage already looked obscene. France walked into the locker room with 65 points and 14 three-pointers on the board, the contest effectively over before the third quarter even began. Nigeria simply had no way to stem the flow; every defensive adjustment arrived a beat too late, every rotation met by another open shooter in rhythm.

Japan’s mark wiped out in days

The record France smashed had barely had time to settle.

Japan had set the new standard earlier in the same tournament with 20 three-pointers against Mali, a performance that seemed destined to stand for a while. It lasted three days.

France didn’t just edge past it. They blew straight through it, “taking that mark to another dimension” on a night when the basket looked ocean-wide for almost everyone in blue.

By the final buzzer, the box score read like a shooting clinic: 111-56, five French players in double figures, and 29 assists spraying the ball around the perimeter. The scoreboard told one story. The shot chart told an even more brutal one.

Williams and Johannes light the fuse

Two names framed the spectacle.

Gabby Williams led all scorers with 25 points, setting the tone from the opening minutes. Marine Johannes, in full flamethrower mode, drilled five three-pointers and stretched Nigeria’s defense until it snapped. The Golden State Valkyries guard-forward added her own long-range masterpiece, going six of eight from deep.

From the start, Williams and Johannes turned the arc into their personal stage. Between them, they combined for eight three-pointers in the first half alone, ripping away any notion that this might be a competitive group finale.

Once the stars had opened the floodgates, the rest of the roster poured through.

The record falls, almost by accident

The pressure kept building. Possession after possession, France spaced the floor, moved the ball, and fired without hesitation. Nigeria chased shadows.

With 5:45 still to play, Migna Touré rose up and dropped in the 21st three-pointer, nudging France into record-breaking territory. A few minutes later, Dominique Malonga delivered the exclamation mark with the 22nd.

Only then did the scale of it really come into focus.

Touré later admitted she had no idea the team was even close to the record. There was no stat-chasing huddle, no orchestrated push. France simply kept playing their game: shoot the open three, trust the pass, punish every late closeout.

On nights like this, the numbers tend to take care of themselves.

France leave the group stage not just as contenders, but as a team that has shown it can tear a game open from the perimeter in a way no one in this World Cup has matched yet. The question now is simple: who can live with them when the threes start falling like this in the knockout rounds?