When the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team went 0-3 in pool play, the prospect of a two-time Olympic gold medalist seemed like a pipe dream, with teamwork and inexperience seemingly insurmountable and USA Basketball’s selection decisions perhaps misplaced.
The four-man team, consisting of Haley Van Lith, Dearrica Hamby, Sierra Burdick and Rhyne Howard, lost to Canada, Germany and Azerbaijan in their opening round of the Olympics. Some of the struggles may have been due to circumstances beyond the team’s control. The team’s star player, Cameron Brink, was ruled out at the last minute with a torn ACL. Sparks teammate Dearrica Hamby filled in for Brink but had little time to adjust to playing with her new 3×3 teammates. The team was also hurt by the fact that Dream player Rhyne Howard was out for a month before the Olympics with a sprained ankle.
Hailey Van Lith and Sierra Burdick are the only two returning members of last year’s gold medal-winning World Cup team, and both expressed disappointment with their slow early starts.
“We started out playing soft and they played a lot harder than us,” Van Lith said after the loss to Canada.
“We’re the most inexperienced team,” Burdick said after the loss to Azerbaijan.
But 3×3 basketball is a game of momentum, and Van Lith, Burdick, Hamby and Howard rode that momentum to five straight wins and an unlikely semifinal berth. Three days after going down 3-0 in Olympic pool play, they’re exactly where they wanted to be — in position to compete for an Olympic medal.
The U.S. opened Saturday’s action with a 14-12 win over China, led by Hailey Van Lith with a game-high six points (on 4-of-9 shooting). The win earned the U.S. the third seed in the tournament and advanced to the play-in round later Saturday. (The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds automatically advance to the semifinals, while the No. 3 through No. 6 seeds advance to the play-in round for a chance to compete for a spot in the semifinals.)
With China ranked sixth overall, the two teams faced off again just four hours later at 4:00 PM ET. In this single-elimination match, it was Dearrica Hamby who was the star of the game. Hamby hit consecutive shots from beyond the three-point line (two points each) to give the USA an early lead, finishing with a game-high nine points while making 3 of 3 two-point shots. Sierra Burdick and Rhyne Howard added five points each, and Burdick grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.
The 21-13 victory capped a dominating five-game winning streak and demonstrated the 3×3 team’s resilience in the face of adversity, putting the U.S. as one of four teams to advance to the medal games.
next
The United States won gold at the last Olympic Games but with a completely different lineup led by Kelsey Plum, Alisha Gray, Stephanie Dolson and Jackie Young, and that lineup has a chance to do it again in the semifinals on Monday, August 5.
Germany will face Canada at 11:30 a.m., and Spain will face the United States at 12:30 p.m. ET. The winners of those two games will play in the gold medal final at 4 p.m., while the losers will play for the bronze medal at 3 p.m.
