July 15, 2024
Megan Gustafson is going for the gold — for Spain
By Angie Holmes
She’s ready to show out in the Olympics
Megan Gustafson wants to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics. And if that means defeating Team USA, which includes four of her Las Vegas Aces teammates, so be it.
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The sixth-year WNBA center was officially named to the 2024 Spain Olympic women’s basketball team on July 9 by the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB). The announcement came after an expedited naturalization process last year and a recent team decision about which naturalized player to take to Paris.
Gustafson, whose family heritage is primarily Swedish and Polish, is aware of the questions regarding her lack of traditional ties to Spain.
“A lot of people do it, a lot of other Americans. I’m not the first and not going to be the last,” she told The Next about her naturalization. “I’m just excited to play basketball and represent them on the big stage.”
What she can control is how she represents her new country.
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“I can prove myself by playing as hard as I can. I think I proved myself in the qualifying tournament. I was able to help them out the best I could, and just keep being myself, honestly,” she said. “Just be able to stay positive. What really matters is my team. They’ve been super welcoming and super friendly. Really helpful through the entire process.”
The process began in early 2023, when Gustafson was Euroleague’s leading scorer during that 2022-23 season, averaging 22.6 points over 16 games as a member of Olympiacos of Greece. While Olympiacos finished just 3-13 in its first Euroleague appearance since 2018-19, Gustafson’s 24 points per game, nine rebounds per game and 3.3 assists per game in the Greek A1 league helped Olympiacos to a 21-1 record and the league championship. Gustafson was named Greek Basket League MVP by EuroBasket.
Taking notice, Spain reached out to Gustafson’s agent that spring about her interest in joining the team. A few other national teams also reached out, but the prospect of joining Spain, which has a long history in the Olympics and EuroBasket, was too great to pass up.
Her Spanish passport was approved in time to join the team for the EuroBasket qualifiers in November. She didn’t play, as she was recovering from plantar fasciitis, but her average of 14.3 points and 3.3 rebounds in three games during the Olympic qualifying tournament in Hungary in February helped secure Spain’s ticket to Paris.
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A decision to make
Among the many tough roster decisions the Spanish national team’s new coach, Miguel Mendez, had to make was which naturalized player to put on the Olympic roster. Even after the efforts to naturalize Gustafson and her clutch performance at the qualifying tournament, she wasn’t a lock to make the team.
Another WNBA center, Astou Ndour-Fall of the Connecticut Sun, also made her wishes known to be on the 2024 Olympic team. Born in Senegal, she moved to Spain’s Canary Islands when she was 14. Naturalized in 2011, she started to play with the Spain women’s national basketball team in 2014, when she was 20 years old. She helped Spain win its first — and only — Olympic medal in 2016, when the country took home silver after falling to the United States 101-72 in the gold medal game at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
After winning a WNBA championship with the Chicago Sky in 2021, Ndour-Fall did not play in the WNBA in 2022 or 2023, opting to rest. She was not on Spain’s roster for the 2023 EuroCup but averaged 18.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per game last season playing for Spain’s Gran Canaria team.
Meanwhile, Gustafson was having a stellar season of her own with the London Lions. They made history, winning their first EuroCup championship, edging out Besiktas 149-145 on aggregate over two finals games. In the deciding game, Gustafson played a key role with 18 points and seven rebounds, including sinking two free throws in the final seconds to clinch the aggregate spread.
Although Gustafson missed the first part of the Lions’ season due to the plantar-fasciitis recovery, she averaged 15.2 points and 6.2 rebounds over 11 EuroCup games and 16.1 points and 5.4 rebounds over nine United Kingdom WBBL games.
In a post Tuesday written in Spanish on X, formerly Twitter, Ndour-Fall expressed her disappointment of not being named to Spain’s Olympics roster and showed her support for the team:
“I have done my best, I have worked intensely to play as well as possible both in Spain and now in the best league in the world, the WNBA, and have the best chance of continuing to contribute to the national team at the Paris Olympics … a fact that I have expressed on various occasions. It has not been possible, I respect the coach’s decision. So I can’t have any other wish than all the success and luck for this important event.”
Gustafson and Ndour-Fall played together in 2020 on the Dallas Wings and were roommates during the pandemic bubble season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Gustafson told The Next of her former teammate. “She’s great. I love her.”
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Busy weeks ahead
Although Gustafson did not travel with the Aces to Seattle last week for their game against the Storm due to a non-COVID illness, she joined the team in Atlanta on Thursday and suited up for Friday’s game against the Dream. The Aces then traveled to Washington, D.C., for a Sunday game against the Mystics. They will face Chicago in Las Vegas on Tuesday for the final game before the All-Star and Olympic break.
But there will be no break for Gustafson, as she’ll head to Madrid directly from Las Vegas the next day.
“It will be so quick,” she told The Next. “It’s going to move really fast. We play on the 16th, and I get on a plane on the 17th. I kind of like it though, coming off a sickness, I need to get my lungs back, and we’ll have two games before then. I’ll be ready and in plenty of shape.”
She will be joining a team, led by captain Alba Torrens, that is ranked fourth in the FIBA rankings, behind the U.S., China and Australia.
Spain will open preliminary-round Group A play against China on July 28 before facing Puerto Rico on July 31 and Serbia on Aug. 3. Canada, Nigeria, Australia and France make up Group B; and Germany, the U.S., Japan and Belgium are in Group C.
The two best teams from each group and the two best third-place teams will advance to the quarterfinals, to be held Aug. 7. Semifinal games are scheduled for Aug. 9, and the medal games will be played Aug. 11.
Gustafson is the sixth player on the Aces’ roster — more than half the team — headed to the Paris Olympics. A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young are all on Team USA, while Tiffany Hayes will play 3-on-3 basketball for Azerbaijan.
Aces head coach Becky Hammon, who played for Russia as a naturalized citizen in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, recognized her players during a postgame press conference Wednesday in Seattle.
“I’m really proud of them,” she told reporters. “I think it’s just a really cool opportunity that they get to go play on the greatest stage.”
Written by Angie Holmes
Angela Holmes is the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) reporter for The Next. Based in the Midwest, she also covers the Big Ten and Big 12.
