Former Butler High School varsity basketball coach Joe Lewandowski enjoys representing his country.

He’s pretty good at it, too.

For the second time in as many tries, Lewandowski helped the USA women attain the gold medal at the FIBA 3X3 World Championships recently in Moscow.

The women’s 20123 team won the gold medal at the inaugural 3X3 world championship event in 2012 in Athens, Greece.

“It was an incredible experience,” said Lewandowski, who still teaches in the Butler Area School District. “I’ve been in a lot of cities and the Red Square in Moscow may be the most beautiful city I’ve ever been in.

“I’m a history teacher, so I can bring a lot of what I saw and experienced back to my students. I’m excited about that, too.”

Lewandowski serves as an advisor and coach for USA 3X3 men’s and women’s basketball. The men’s team went 2-4 in the tournament — defeating Germany and the Netherlands — while losing four games by a combined 13 points.

“We lost some tough ones,” Lewandowski said. “Poland forced overtime on a last-second desperation shot, then beat us.

“But our guys competed. We had amateur players going up against pros and that made it difficult. But we were in every single game.”

Games were played on half-court with 10 minutes of game clock.

The USA women’s team faced pros as well and finished 9-0, defeating Belgium 18-14 in the semifinals before toppling host Russia, 15-8, in the championship game.

The women also defeated teams from Hungary, Brazil, Ukraine, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay and France along the way. Belgium was the only opponent to score more than 10 points against the Americans.

“All four of our players (Jewell Lloyd of Notre Dame, Tiffany Mitchell of South Carolina, Cierra Burdick of Tennessee and Sara Hammond of Louisville) will be WNBA draft picks and that helps close the gap a bit,” Lewandowski said.

Lloyd was named MVP of the tournament and Burdick could dunk the ball, “which surprised a lot of people there,” Lewandowski said.

“There’s always a rivalry there when it’s the United States vs. Russia,” he said. “That was a tough atmosphere, everyone chanting Rus-sia! Rus-sia! ... We felt it was us against everybody else.

“Our men’s team was there to cheer on the women and a couple of U.S. fans put an American flag up in a corner of the building. The girls saw that and seemed to respond to it.

“Our defense was outstanding. They (Russia) like to screen and roll and we took that away from them. Our girls wanted to prove they were the best players out there and they did that,” Lewandowski added.

The American contingent was at the venue at least 90 minutes before every game, running through plays and shooting around.

That was not lost on tournament officials.

“One official from Russia walked up to me when the tournament was over and said we earned it, that we were here when no one else was,” Lewandowski said. “That meant a lot.”

He said one of his favorite parts of the trip was meeting coaches and basketball officials from the other countries.

“We were all talking X’s and O’s, talking basketball ... Other teams were curious about how we prepared and what we do,” Lewandowski said. “It was all about how to grow the game.

“We talked about those things through an interpreter for China and Japan. That’s what’s great about international competition. It was beautiful.”

Lewandowski has been working with USA Basketball — particularly 3X3 — for three years and doesn’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.

“You get to work with extremely talented people and representing your country in anything is a true privilege,” he said. “Yeah, I see myself staying with this.”