PHOENIX — The U.S. women’s national basketball team finds itself in a familiar situation.
Ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, a squad made up of WNBA All-Stars suffered an eight-point loss to Team USA. Dallas Wings’ Arike Ogunbowale was named the 2021 MVP. Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team WNBA suffered another eight-point loss to the national team on Saturday, beating Team USA, 117-109. Ogunbowale scored a record 34 points and was once again named All-Star Game MVP.
“It felt a little like deja vu,” said Breanna Stewart, who finished with a team-high 31 points, 10 rebounds and three assists.
Team USA has seen this story play out before — the players lost an exhibition at All-Star Weekend before winning their seventh consecutive gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics — so they’re not worried.
“I’m not going to hit the panic button right now,” said A’ja Wilson, who had 22 points and six rebounds. “We needed to get tested.”
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Team USA coach Cheryl Reeve said the WNBA team’s win over the national team only highlights the high level of talent in the U.S.
“The U.S. has a depth of talent that’s hard to match,” Reeve said. “We have great players on this team, everybody knows that. There’s no indication that there are players on the WNBA team that aren’t good enough to play for the national team…But only 12 make the national team.”
Reeve jokingly added: “I wonder if Arike Ogunbowale is playing for any of these teams we’re playing against?”
Ogunbowale was held scoreless in the first half but then went on to score 34 straight points, becoming the most scored player in WNBA All-Star game history and surpassing the previous record set by Jewell Loyd (31) in 2023.
“Coach (Cheryl Miller) called me out in front of everybody at halftime,” Ogunbowale recalled. “I didn’t know she was going to call my name. She was talking about the team and she pointed at me. (Miller) just told me to take a deep breath and play my game.”
Ogunbowale said the Olympic uniform inspired him to perform better: “The players are preparing to play (at the Olympics) and they want to win, so we won’t embarrass ourselves. … I love to compete, and if I hear someone is trying to beat me, I’m going to work twice as hard to beat them, which is usually the case when I play against the U.S. team.”
Reeve said if his teammates can take anything away from the performance, it’s that they must improve their defensive effort.
“We just came out and played. We just didn’t really compete,” Reeve said. “We need to work more as a team on defense. We had a lot of one-on-one situations. We didn’t get much help. We didn’t have much rim protection. You don’t want to give up 60 points in the paint… that was the biggest disappointment for me.”
The U.S. team will face Germany on Tuesday in London, their final exhibition match before Paris 2024. The U.S. team begins its Olympic group stage on July 29 in France.
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