USA Basketball said experience was a major reason Caitlin Clark was not on the U.S. women’s Olympic roster that was officially revealed Tuesday.
The selection committee didn’t believe the talented Clark had enough high-level reps to be a member of the group headed to the Paris Games. The team includes seven players from the group that won gold in Tokyo — the seventh straight for the Americans.
Selection committee chair Jen Rizzotti said the committee was aware of the outside noise and pressure to select Clark, the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft who has drawn millions of new fans to the sport from her record-setting career in college at Iowa to now with the Indiana Fever.
“Here’s the basketball criteria that we were given as a committee and how do we evaluate our players based on that?” Rizzotti told The Associated Press in an interview. “And when you base your decision on criteria, there were other players that were harder to cut because they checked a lot more boxes. Then sometimes it comes down to position, style of play for [coach Cheryl Reeve] and then sometimes a vote.”
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