Team USA WBB Claims 58th Consecutive Olympic Victory
VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France — Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve is no stranger to dynasties. From 2011 to 2017, her Minnesota Lynx won four WNBA championships. And during the 2016 Rio Olympics, where Reeve was an assistant, four of her players played key roles for the gold-medal team.
So it’s probably a comforting — and in a way familiar — feeling for Reeve to now watch four starters for the Las Vegas Aces, the reigning two-time WNBA champions, from her bench in France.
On Sunday night, it was a core of the most dominant WNBA team in recent history — who would have thought — that led Team USA to an 87-68 victory over Germany in the team’s final group stage game.
The game was fairly evenly matched for the first 15 minutes (Germany even led after the first quarter), but midway through the second quarter — just a minute after Team USA had taken its first lead of the game on a layup by Alyssa Thomas — Reeve brought A’ja Wilson back onto the court, where she joined Aces guards Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young. With the Aces core on the court, Team USA closed out the first half on a 17-7 run.
Once again, midway through the third quarter, a Plum-Young substitution (with Wilson already on the court) provided immediate offensive energy for Team USA as the team — which had allowed Germany to cut its lead to 10 — closed the third quarter on a 20-7 run.
It was a particularly effective night for Young, who finished with a team-high 19 points on 7 of 13 shooting, including 5 of 8 from behind the arc. Through the first two games, Young had played a combined 20 minutes and attempted just one shot — a 3-pointer against Japan in the opener. Her success from behind the arc is especially important for Team USA, as the group has struggled from distance throughout the tournament; excluding Young’s performance against Germany, Team USA shot just 23.6 percent from beyond the arc during group stage play.
Geno Auriemma, head coach of the 2016 team that featured four Lynx players, knows how important the chemistry Team USA currently has with its Aces is.
“When you have a group of players that have played together and won together and have great chemistry, that’s invaluable to a coach and to a team that doesn’t have a lot of time to practice to prepare,” he said. “As individuals, Sylvia Fowles, Seimone Augustus, Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen were just incredible to work with.”
Team USA ends the group stage at 3-0 with one question remaining: Will it become the No. 1 overall seed? The ultimate decider will come down to points differential, with France leading Team USA by three points heading into the final day of group stage matches. With the French playing behind Team USA on Sunday night, Les Bleues know exactly what kind of differential they’re after and that could create an interesting dynamic in the France-Australia matchup.
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(Photo: Jesse D. Garrabrant/Getty Images)
