Despite being off to a less than anticipated start, the USA Basketball women’s 3×3 team is yet to lose.
To the surprise of many, the defending gold medal champions lost their first three pool matches of the Olympic Games and were in danger of elimination with a loss to Spain on Thursday afternoon. However, Hailey Van Lith, Sierra Burdick, Rhyne Howard and Diarika Hamby defeated Spain 17-11 to claim their first victory at the Paris Olympics.
The team’s record improved to one win and three losses. It’s still not a great result, and they’re last in the overall rankings, but the path forward is now clear.
“We’ve got to play tough here and get some momentum going, but we still have a chance,” Van Lith said. From the Dallas Morning News.
The U.S. women’s 3×3 team won the gold medal at the last Olympics, but it was made up of a completely different set of players. WNBA Players: Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum (both on the 5×5 Olympic basketball team), Alisha Gray (WNBA All-Star), Stephanie Dolson (maybe should have been an All-Star this season).
This lineup hasn’t had much time, and that’s been evident through four games. Burdick and Van Lith were both members of the 3×3 team that won gold at the 2023 World Championships, but they were led by Cameron Brink, who was replaced by Hamby after tearing his ACL last month. Hamby and Howard have never played with the two more experienced members of the roster.
The group has spoken openly about its limited practice time and experience, but has remained confident all week that it has a chance.
The women’s team fell to 0-3 after their loss to Australia, but Ryne Howard said staying united was key. From NPR.
“We have to stick together. We know what’s not working and we have to improve on that,” she said. “We’re just trying to take what we can learn from it and try to be better the next game.”
In the win over Spain, Hailey Van Lith broke out of her slump and scored five points on 3-of-5 shooting, Howard, the team’s most decorated pro player, also added five points, Sierra Burdick added four and Dearrica Hamby three.
Here’s the current situation:
The top two teams in the standings will automatically advance to the semifinals, while the next four will advance to a play-in round to compete for the remaining two semifinal spots. Therefore, the U.S. must find a way to finish among the top six teams in the Olympics to have a chance at a medal. Currently, the U.S. sits at the bottom of the standings, so it will have to perform perfectly in its remaining games.
- Australia: 3-1 Australia beat China 21-15 today and then beat the United States 17-15.
- Germany: 3-1 Germany beat Canada 19-15 today and then beat Azerbaijan 12-8.
- Canada: 2-1 (Canada lost to Germany, but then beat France, 13-9.)
- China: 2-2 (China wins
- Spain: 2-2 Spain lost both games today to China and the United States.
- France: 1-2 (France beat Azerbaijan 15-10 before losing to Canada.)
- Azerbaijan: 1-3 (Azerbaijan lost to France and Germany)
- USA: 1-3 (The U.S. lost to Australia 17-15 before beating Spain 17-11.)
The future of the USA Women’s Basketball 3×3 team
Tomorrow is a big day for the US 3×3 team, as they face France in the morning (7am ET) and Canada in the afternoon (12pm ET). Two wins would give the US a chance to climb out of the bottom two and into the play-in tournament, but anything less would eliminate the defending champions.
Then on Saturday they’ll face China in the final Olympic pool match at 1:05 p.m. ET.
The U.S. women’s team will likely need to win all three games to advance to the play-in round, a preliminary round before the semifinals, but that will be a tough task, especially given their shaky start.
