The U.S. girls’s basketball nationwide workforce is again in motion starting this weekend because the squad performs within the FIBA AmeriCup in Santiago, Chile.
Becoming a member of Group USA and host Chile within the 10-team discipline are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
It’s the 18th version of the AmeriCup, a standard 5-on-5 competitors that has existed since 1993. The video games are used as a qualifying occasion for the FIBA Ladies’s World Cup, which shall be performed in Berlin, Germany in 2026.
Whereas the AmeriCup is a senior girls’s nationwide workforce occasion, the WNBA doesn’t take a break throughout its play. And so, Group USA — due to its luxurious of depth and expertise — typically sends a youthful, developmental workforce to the event composed of faculty gamers. In 2023 for instance, the Individuals received a silver medal behind the play of Angel Reese, Lauren Betts and Deja Kelly. In 2021, they captured the gold with a squad powered by Rhyne Howard, Aliyah Boston and Elissa Cunane.
This yr’s workforce is comparable in that it’s headlined by among the largest stars in girls’s faculty basketball, together with Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson, TCU’s Olivia Miles and Madison Booker of Texas.
For Hidalgo and Miles, the event reunites the previous backcourt mates for the Preventing Irish. It’s the primary time followers will see them collectively since a seemingly tense alternate in South Bend throughout a WNBA preseason sport.
“This can be a enterprise journey,” Booker advised The Subsequent. “What’s on all people’s thoughts right here is profitable gold.”
Additionally on the roster are rising sophomore standouts like South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards and Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes, the latter of whom received the USBWA Tamika Catchings Award as nationwide freshman of the yr this previous season. Blakes twice scored north of fifty factors in a pair of wins for the Commodores as a rookie.
The roster additionally options Iowa State standout Audi Crooks, Iowa senior Hannah Stuelke, Oklahoma All-American Raegan Beers, UCLA sharpshooter Gianna Kneepkens, USC’s Kennedy Smith and Michigan State’s Grace VanSlooten.
Whereas the Individuals could have a younger workforce, they’ll be dealing with off towards rosters made up of principally seasoned veterans who’ve expertise taking part in in Olympics, World Cups and different worldwide competitions. Chicago Sky middle Kamilla Cardoso and Indiana Fever middle Damiris Dantas, for instance, will play for Brazil. Canada’s workforce — coached by Nell Fortner — will characteristic a number of noteworthy present faculty gamers as nicely, together with Michigan’s Syla Swords and BYU’s Delaney Gibb, in addition to gamers who lately wrapped up their collegiate eligibility like Gonzaga’s Yvonne Ejim.
Teaching Group USA is Kara Lawson, who’s coming off her fifth season guiding the Duke Blue Devils. Duke received the ACC Event and made the Elite Eight for the primary time since 2013 this previous season. Lawson, 44, has received Olympic gold medals with Group USA as a participant (2008), assistant coach (2024) and head coach of the 3×3 workforce in 2021. Due to her mixture of expertise, resume and success, she may very well be a candidate to steer the senior nationwide workforce at a premier occasion just like the Olympics sooner or later.
Oklahoma’s Jennie Baranczyk and Previous Dominion’s DeLisha Milton-Jones are Lawson’s assistants for the event. Like Lawson, Milton-Jones received an Olympic gold medal taking part in in 2008.
“Now we have gamers which have nice versatility, which is necessary. Now we have gamers which might be nice opponents, which I like loads as a attribute,” Lawson stated lately by way of Zoom. “I believe our practices have been centered. We’ve been having conversations about how troublesome it’s to win internationally, how laborious it’s a must to play, and positively how bodily the video games are going to be down there. We perceive we’re a university group going to play in an expert setting… We’re going to must play at a better stage bodily than we do on the NCAA stage.”
Group USA is in Group B and can face Chile on June 28 to open the event. The Individuals will then tackle Colombia (June 29), Puerto Rico (June 30) and Mexico (July 2). Video games will be watched on FIBA’s streaming service. The event will finish on Sunday, July 6.
