Having already qualified for the 2024 Olympics in Paris due to their triumph at the 2022 World Cup, Team USA’s participation was a formality.
The Americans, intent upon earning an eighth-straight gold medal this summer, used it as an opportunity to prepare for Paris. After a three-day training camp at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn during the first weekend of February, head coach Cheryl Reeve and her staff tapped 12 players for the three-game qualifying tournament in Antwerp, Belgium.
Team USA collected three victories abroad, although the first one, a two-point win over the host Belgians off a buzzer-beating tip in from Breanna Stewart, possibly should have required an extra period. Before missing the shot that Stewart would tip in, Kelsey Plum appeared to step out of bounds. The Americans won their second and third games in expectedly dominant fashion, defeating Nigeria and Senegal.
However, the process, rather than the results, is more important, not necessarily for evaluating the favored Americans’ prospects in Paris but for trying to determine who the 12 players wearing red, white and blue will be. Based on minutes, performance and any other minutiae, who appears best positioned to claim a spot on the Olympic team?
Here’s a game-by-game assessment of the…
