USA Basketball has opted for expertise in deciding on the 12 girls to symbolize the nation at this summer season’s Olympics in Paris.
Diana Taurasi is about to make her sixth look on the Video games, whereas 9 different members of the squad have already received an Olympic gold medal.
There is no such thing as a place for WNBA breakout star Caitlin Clark.
USA Basketball girls’s nationwide workforce committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti stated the choice course of had been “difficult and aggressive”.
“Now we have chosen a workforce that we’re assured will symbolize our nation to the very best commonplace in Paris,” Rizzotti stated.
The 12-strong roster heading to Paris boasts a mixed 15 Olympic gold medals, 18 girls’s World Cup titles and 55 WNBA All-Star appearances.
Regardless of being heavy favourites as they chase an eighth successive Olympic gold medal, some have prompt the USA have missed a trick by not together with rookie Clark.
The 22-year-old loved a trailblazing faculty profession with Iowa and her performances within the WNBA have helped enhance the profile of girls’s sport whereas smashing attendance and viewing information.
USA At this time columnist Christine Brennan stated it’s a “large missed alternative” by selectors.
ESPN pundit Stephen A Smith additionally criticised the choice.
“It compromises what your final objective is, which is to raise the WNBA model,” stated Smith. “How might you be that idiotic and never make that decision, when all through historical past, Group USA has been, partially, about advertising and marketing? It is dumb, interval.”
Clark, talking on Sunday, tried to minimize controversy and insisted she can be firmly behind the workforce.
“I do know it is essentially the most aggressive workforce on this planet and I do know it might have gone both method – me being on the workforce or me not being on the workforce,” she stated.
“I’ll be rooting them on to win gold. I used to be a child that grew up watching the Olympics, so will probably be enjoyable to look at them.
“Truthfully, no disappointment. It simply offers me one thing to work for; it is a dream. Hopefully in the future I will be there.”
In the meantime, Indiana coach Christie Sides expects Clark to develop from the expertise.
“The factor she stated was, ‘Hey, coach, they woke a monster,’ which I assumed was superior,” Sides stated.
“She’s younger, she’s going to have so many alternatives sooner or later.”
USA girls’s basketball squad for 2024 Olympics: Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury), Napheesa Collier (Minnesota Lynx), Kahleah Copper (Phoenix Mercury), Chelsea Grey (Las Vegas Aces), Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury), Sabrina Ionescu (New York Liberty), Jewell Loyd (Seattle Storm), Kelsey Plum (Las Vegas Aces), Breanna Stewart (New York Liberty), Alyssa Thomas (Connecticut Solar), A’ja Wilson (Las Vegas Aces) and Jackie Younger (Las Vegas Aces)