Johnette Howard is an award-winning writer and author who previously worked for Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, and Newsday. The men, on the other hand, have made it their mission since 2000 to give every US basketball fan a heart attack as they battle through global competition.
Advertisement
“I think that (practice) helped us”, said coach Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke legend who took over the national team in 2005, is 58-1 since (including 51 consecutive wins; 23 in the Olympics) and will retire as national team coach after this game.
With a 110-64 win over France, the USA remained undefeated in the tournament and registered their 48th consecutive victory in Olympic play. This marked the first time on the podium for the countries in women’s basketball.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. But Auriemma said the upside of having already played one game without Bird is the USA won’t have to spend a half working the kinks out of their offense in the gold-medal game like they did on this night.
France played the US tight for the first half and trailed by just four points at halftime.
“I know they are going to watch a lot of film and adjust some things”, McCoughtry said. “[Sheryl] Swoopes? Can I be Swoopes?” She is now a four-time Olympic gold medalist. Fowles and Seimone Augustus won their third gold medals.
US boxer Shakur Stevenson has reached the bantamweight final after Russian semifinal opponent Vladimir Nikitin was ruled out because of an injury. France controlled the quick tempo of the game, but Team USA kept its momentum going with yet another three-pointer from Taurasi and seven points from Maya Moore. They practice their shooting, and their plays, and their defensive rotations and they were on point in that first half. Something just didn’t feel right Thursday night in their semifinal game against France. Rapinoe said: “We’ve been on the winning side quite a bit, and when we find ourselves on the other side, we need to handle that graciously, and unfortunately that wasn’t the case”.
“We learned that from them”. It’s the first time either of them have reached the Olympic final four.
“We’ll go for it”. This was supposed to be the best defense in U.S. Olympic history, but they’ve been playing lazy, meandering basketball on that end to this point. She will undergo tests to determine whether she might play Saturday. When you get together as a team and you know you only have a month to do something, it’s remarkable in so many ways that we were able to put this together and do it in a fashion that leaves no question marks. Auriemma described Bird as point guard dedicated to ball movement, whose, “goal is to win an Olympic game and not have to take any shots”.
While fans missed seeing the veteran Bird on the court, her teammates felt her absence as well. “We just did something really incredible”. Carolina Marin of Spain beat the defending Olympic champion from China to advance to the gold medal singles match. This put us on the map as arguably one of the best teams, and we had fun doing it.
On the flip side, it’s worth wondering how the Spaniards will deal with the backcourt of Bird and Taurasi if Bird is cleared to play. “It was just such an eye opener”, said USA center Elena Delle Donne.
With just the clock and the crowd for company in their re-run hours later, they took the stick around in 41.77 seconds to knock slowest-qualifier China out the final and get in through the back door.
“With our offense, what I try to do is say, like when you’re a kid, here’s your sandbox”, Auriemma said, holding up his hands in a square, “and it is this big, and within that sandbox you can do whatever you want”.
Auriemma is used to hitting new heights.
Even though the United States were the only team to finish group play without a loss, questions about their ability to claim a third straight gold swirled after three unimpressive narrow wins to close out the preliminary round. Reserves Stewart and Delle Donne added 11 and 10 points, respectively.
U.S. defeated France 86-67 on Thursday to advance to the gold medal game, as they have every year since 1996.
Advertisement
“They’ve got their own issues at point guard spot with Celine being out, but managed pretty well”, Auriemma said.
