PARIS — With so little time to prepare as a team ahead of the Olympics, U.S. coach Cheryl Reeve had always said she was going to look at each game as an opportunity to learn more about her players, her team and their chemistry.
With only four practices before the team landed in Paris, this was a group that was, in many ways, always going to need to build the plane as it was taking off. And if Team USA’s 88–74 quarterfinal win over Nigeria was any indicator, then Reeve has certainly not only learned a lot about her team in the first three group stage games but also put them to good use in the knockout stage of the Olympics.
“We going to continue to tweak, tweak, tweak,” Reeve had said after Team USA’s final group stage game. “By the time we get to the end, we’ll probably think we have it figured out and we’ll probably want to play some more games.”
But against Nigeria, the tweaks (and the payoff) were evident from the jump. When the starting five took the floor, six-time Olympian Diana Taurasi — who had started each of the two Olympic tune-up games as well as the three group stage games — turned and walked toward the bench while Jackie Young took the floor in her spot. Given the consistency of Team USA’s starting five during its two Olympic tune-up…
