PARIS — From a small, fluorescent lit gymnasium simply north of Paris, Group USA coach Cheryl Reeve was requested about her crew’s greatest benefit within the Olympics.
Depth, she paused. No, measurement.
“1A, 1B,” she determined.
Reeve isn’t improper. With three gamers taller than 6-4 and a bevy of guards within the 6-foot vary, Group USA may have a peak and size benefit, one via 5, on almost each opponent that takes the ground throughout these Olympic Video games. And in relation to depth, although different international locations have continued to construct proficient rosters through the years, which could have the ability to compete properly for an prolonged time with the States’ beginning 5, the actual intestine punch for opponents comes when Reeve rolls out her backups and rotational gamers, for whom no opponents’ six via 10 can maintain tempo. It should really feel one thing like, Oh, you thought these 5 WNBA All-Stars have been robust to protect? Effectively, how about you attempt 5 extra? After which, for good measure, one other two?
There’s additionally the actual fact the People have the 2 finest gamers on the planet, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, essentially the most skilled Olympian, Diana Taurasi, and 4 members of the two-time defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces (together with Wilson).
So, sure, per standard, Group USA has various benefits in these Olympic Video games even earlier than mentioning the legacy this crew carries into these video games.
As a result of there’s no dynasty as dominant in sports activities now because the U.S. girls in worldwide basketball. For seven consecutive Olympics, the ladies have introduced residence the gold, constructing the expectation (and, assumption) with every consecutive win.
Group USA hasn’t misplaced a single Olympic recreation (together with pool play) for the reason that 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. The closest recreation in Olympic play since these 1996 Video games — the beginning of the gold medal streak — was a 4-point win over Russia in 2004, however these shut video games are uncommon. Simply thrice within the final seven Olympics have opponents saved their losses to single digits.
So, to say that this Group USA girls’s basketball crew doesn’t know something besides Olympic gold medals isn’t only a determine of speech. For almost all of this roster, it’s factually true. Simply three gamers on the roster have been alive the final time a Group USA girls’s crew misplaced an Olympic recreation — Aug. 5, 1992 (and, Alyssa Thomas was barely 4 months previous on the time).
And but, with all these benefits — each traditionally and on this particular second — Reeve is hyperaware of the drawbacks that include a rustic this full of ladies’s basketball expertise.
Due to the depth Group USA has in its participant pool, and never simply with the ultimate 12 gamers who made the Olympic roster, the personnel rotates extra considerably all through the four-year cycles between Olympics than in different international locations. When the crew’s roster was introduced in June, the complete 12 had by no means really been in a camp collectively earlier than. And after they took the ground within the All-Star Sport earlier this month, the 12 had solely had two practices with the complete complement of gamers. That type of truncated prep time impacts chemistry (which was fairly clear throughout their loss to the WNBA All-Stars).
“Talent is not going to be the reason why we win,” Cheryl Reeve says of Group USA. “It’s going to be the chemistry of our talent.” (Gregory Shamus / Getty Pictures)
However Reeve knew that will be one of many hardest challenges of this crew. In her first on-floor look as Group USA’s coach in 2022, Reeve addressed the apparent together with her crew. They’d play groups who knew each other higher, who had performed collectively extra, who had practiced collectively extra, however they might by no means use that as an excuse for his or her not discovering a option to play properly collectively.
“Talent is not going to be the reason why we win,” Reeve mentioned. “It’s going to be the chemistry of our talent. And we have to work hard at that and focus on that.”
Between the All-Star Sport and Group USA’s pleasant towards Germany final week, the group made strides. Defensively (Reeve’s calling card), the group appeared extra collectively. Reeve, who additionally coaches the Minnesota Lynx, leaned on her WNBA expertise from this season, when the Lynx, returning simply 5 gamers, managed to jell properly sufficient through the league’s two-week preseason to place collectively some of the spectacular first halves to the WNBA season with a win within the league-wide Commissioner’s Cup in June.
Group USA is aware of that in its personal pool — Japan, Belgium and Germany — the gamers on these groups have gotten extra reps collectively as groups, not simply on this final Olympic cycle but in addition with some cores enjoying collectively for a lot of, a few years. However with the expertise, depth and each different benefit Group USA has going its manner, the crew hopes to make use of each minute on the ground collectively to speed up its jelling and permit its benefits to overshadow no matter drawbacks may exist from its lack of time collectively.
As a result of 13 days from Group USA’s opener towards Japan on Monday, they plan to be on the rostrum with this system’s eighth consecutive gold medal, holding up the expectation that the seven groups forward of them made completely clear.
Reeve has made positive this group tries to separate the legacy of Group USA’s 55 consecutive Olympic wins from what this group hopes to do over the following two weeks, however make no mistake about it: Simply as this program has during the last three a long time, the objective and the expectation is one and the identical. It’s gold, and nothing much less. Massive wins, and nothing much less. It’s the Group USA manner, and nothing much less.
(Prime illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Juan Ocampo / NBAE / Getty Pictures; Ryan Stetz / NBAE / Getty Pictures)
