RIO DE JANEIRO — The United States’ Women’s Senior national team may be too good for its own good.
Team USA brushed away France, 86-67, here last night in the Olympic semi-finals at Carioca Arena I to advance to Saturday afternoon’s Olympic gold medal game against Spain. If they win their sixth consecutive championship, it will likely be taken for granted by the American public because they always win.
“We’ll see what happens after Saturday,” guard Diana Taurasi said with a smile, . “If we run around naked, we’ll get attention, win or lose.”
Taurasi creates attention any time she plays. The former Connecticut All America who plays for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association and UMMC Ekaterinburg of Russia is the sport’s ultimate winner and arguably the best player in the world. “You can check all the records you want, from the time she started college to today, the amount of championships she’s won and put them up against anybody,” Team USA coach Geno Auriemma said. ” And I don’t know anybody who comes close.”
Taurasi, whose father was a professional soccer player in Italy and her mother is from Argentina, is the most decorated player in the women’s sport. She has won three NCAA championships, three WNBA titles, six Euroleague titles and six Russian national league championships during her luminescent 16 year career. Internationally, she won one FIBA Junior U19 World title, one FIBA Americas championship, two World Cups and three Olympics and one FIBA Diamond Ball.
Taurasi stepped again when called on, scoring 18 points, grabbing 5 rebounds, contributing 4 assists and initiating the offense from the point after invaluable starter Sue Bird sprained her left knee against Japan in the quarterfinals and missed her first Olympic game in three cycles. “It seems like whenever things aren’t going well for our team, she has a way of focusing even more so. Hits big shot after big shot. Nobody I’d rather play with. Nobody I’d rather give the ball to at the end of the game.”
Bird has the best understanding of the point guard position in the world. She is day to day for Spain.
“I think it’s the best news I could have gotten,” she said. “Long term, best news. Short term we’ll see how it goes. I’m going to try. To be honest, I woke up yesterday and didn’t feel amazing. Today, I woke up felt dramatically better. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I’m going to be smart about this. It’s your body and you don’t want to put yourself in danger. But if I can play, I’m going to play.”.
Team USA, which has won 48 consecutive Olympic games, showed it could survive without Bird, although it took a while for them to take control against a team filled with Euroleague veterans.
“I told the players before the game this is going to be a hard game today,” Taurasi said. “I know France like the back of my hand. I’ve been in the Euroleague for 12 and a half years. I’ve played against these guys. It’s never an easy game against them. Their brute strength and skill makes it hard to defend them. They were on point in the first half. They made us work.”
The French women have a team that most closely resembles the United States in terms of size and ability in this international competition. Veteran 6-3 center Isabelle Yoacoubou, playing in her final Olympics, scored 14 points and grabbed 5 points and guard Marine Johannes had 13 for France, which played the U.S close for a half, trailing just 40-36, before Team USA finally took control.
Taurasi took over the game in the third quarter, making a pair of threes and contributing four assists as the United States pushed the lead to 65-44 by limiting France to just three field goals. .
“You’re not going to be able to take someone like that (Sue Bird) out of the lineup and have it just continue to flow smoothly like it did the first six games,” U.S. Natonal team coach Geno Auriemma said. “So, we struggled a little bit with it. Our ball movement wasn’t nearly as good, there was a different kind of rhythm, a different kind of flow to our offense. But once we got a little bit comfortable there in the third quarter, we got some separation. We probably needed a game like this under our belt going into Saturday. We found out a lot about what we need to do and what we’re capable of doing.”
“It took us a while,” Taurasi added. “I have to change my mind set to more distributing when Sue is out. You forget how much she does for this team. We have so many scorers she finds a way to get everyone in theri spots to get everyone touches so she sacrifices for that. I had to do a little bit of that today. We figured it out a little bit in the second half.”
Team USA defeats France 86-67 to advance to the Rio Olympics Women’s Basketball gold medal game against Spain
The United States is an offensive powerhouse. Team USA got 15 points, seven rebounds and three assists from guard Maya Moore, 12 points and nine rebounds from 6-6 center Sylvia Fowles; 10 points, six rebounds and 3 assists from swing forward Seimone Augustus and 10 points and 6 rebounds from 6-8 center Brittany Griner.
“The USA is big compared to France,” Yacoubou said. “We need to make selections of best players in Europe. They have more choices, which gives them better players. But they’re not God. They are only players like us. Really good, but they are only players. They can make mistakes. They can miss shots like us. So now we play them more like rivals. Before we looked at them as fans.”
It is hard not to be a fan of this unselfish, experienced, seemingly unbeatable team that constantly plays for one another.
“This team is just rocking right now,” Taurasi said. “Today (37-year old Tamika) Catch’ (ings) came in and turned the game around. You find inspiration from different people. It’s just a lot of respect we have for each other.”
