June 8, 2024
Reports: Team USA roster finalized for 2024 Olympics
Reported roster has Taurasi in, Clark out
USA Basketball has reportedly finalized the 5-on-5 women’s national team roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the team is stacked with 12 veteran WNBA players.
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While USA Basketball hasn’t officially announced the roster, several reports say that the athletes expected to be chosen for Paris are Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier, Phoenix Mercury wing Kahleah Copper, Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray, Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, Seattle Storm guard Jewell Loyd, Aces guard Kelsey Plum, Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, Mercury guard Diana Taurasi, Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas, Aces forward A’ja Wilson and Aces guard Jackie Young.
The Athletic was first to report the news, and The Associated Press also confirmed seeing the unreleased roster. A source familiar with the situation told The Next that the roster will be announced next week.
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The U.S. women have won gold at every Olympics since 1996, and with this reported roster, they will stack up quite well against any opponent.
Out of the 12 players, nine have either 5-on-5 or 3-on-3 Olympic experience. Copper, Ionescu and Thomas will be first-time Olympians. However, all three first-timers played on the U.S. team that won a gold medal at the 2022 World Cup.
For Taurasi, the oldest player on the roster, this will be her sixth Olympics — a record for a basketball player. Griner, her Mercury teammate, will play in her third Olympics. It will be her first international competition since being detained in Russia for 10 months in 2022.
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The team will be led by Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve. Her assistant coaches will be Washington Mystics general manager Mike Thibault, Duke head coach Kara Lawson and Texas A&M head coach Joni Taylor.
According to ESPN, the members of the committee responsible for selecting the Olympic roster include Sun president and Team USA 3-on-3 coach Jennifer Rizzotti, South Carolina and former Team USA head coach Dawn Staley, Atlanta Dream general manager Dan Padover, WNBA head of league operations Bethany Donaphin, LSU assistant coach and Olympic gold medalist Seimone Augustus, and Old Dominion head coach and Olympic gold medalist DeLisha Milton-Jones.
The U.S. team was placed in Group C for the Olympics and is set to face Japan on July 29 at 3 p.m. ET, Belgium on Aug. 1 at 3 p.m. ET and Germany on Aug. 4 at 11:15 a.m. ET. If it advances, it will enter the single-elimination knockout stage, which begins on Aug. 7. The gold-medal game is set to be played on Aug. 11.
Once the reported roster was released, some WNBA fans were surprised to see Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark absent from the list. While she did receive an invitation to training camp, she was leading Iowa to the Final Four at the time and was unable to attend. Sources told The Athletic that if one of the 12 players on the roster is unable to play, Clark, Fever teammate Aliyah Boston and Sun forward Brionna Jones will likely be the alternates, though no alternates are expected to be named publicly.
