SAN CRISTOBAL de La Luna, Canary Islands — Diana Tarausi knows how to pick her spots.
The 6-2, 36-year old All WNBA guard from the WNBA Phoenix Mercury, who was the shining star of the United States’ gold medal team in Rio, scored 26 points as the Americans pulled away from old school European power Belgium, 93-77, to advance to the championship round of the Women’s World Cup here Saturday night at nearly sold out Santiago Martin Arena here.
Tarausi, who only scored one field goal in the U.S.A.’s sluggish 71-40 victory over Nigeria in the quarterfinals, shot 7 for 12, made 5 of 9 three pointers, had three assists and provided a huge boost of energy throughout the game. Tarausi came out on fire, at the start of the second half when she drilled three consecutive threes to set the tone as the Americans broke a 52-52 tie and outscored Belgium, 21-5, to take a 73-57 lead at the end of the third quarter, turning what had been a close game into another route.
(Diana Tarausi discusses the game with an official and then shows here legendary shooting form at the foul line)
FIBA must think Tarausi, the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer and the league’s best player ever, has super powers. After the game, she was supposed to be in the interview session with Staley, but he had to go to drug testing instead.
She did stop by the mix zone for a few seconds after the Belgian players stopped her on the way to the locker room to offer hugs and congratulations to the legend.
“It was a very hard game,’’ Tarausi admitted. “Belgium’s had an incredible tournament. It’s nice to see a team like that. They’re really organized. They know what they want to do on the court. Today we played well. The second half, we got a little bit of rhythm going and we played well.
“We made some stops. They hard to guard. You can tell they’ve been playing together for a long time. If you make a mistake, they make you play for it. We just got a couple more stops. We made a couple more plays on offense. I think our depth wore them down a little. They’ve been playing big minutes. But that’s a really good team. That’s just the bottom line.’’
When Tarausi finally retires after the 2020 Olympics in Japan, she will earn a place in the same pantheon as Michael Jordan on the men’s side. “If you don’t know who she is by now, you must be living under a rock,’’ Staley said. “This is the type of situation which she thrives on. And she delivers, almost always. She has an impact like this on the game. Whether it’s shooting the ball the way she did or distributing. She came up with big plays offensively and defensively, getting deflections and steals. That’s what you want a player like Diana to do in these types of situations.’’
Tarausi, whose penchant for making crucial shots has earned her the nickname, “White Mamba,” a take- off on Kobe Bryant’s nickname “Black Mamba,” is one of the most decorated players to play for USA basketball ever since she began joined the national team in 2004, winning four Olympic gold medals and three World Championships.
Tarausi will go after No. 4 Sunday night against Australia, which outlasted Spain, 72-66, behnd 33 points and 15 rebounds from powerful 6-8 center Liz Cambage before a raucous home crowd.
She wasn’t the only American star to shine. The USA, which made 10 three pointers, also got a huge effort from the versatile 6-4 Breanna Stewart, who finished with 20 points and seven rebounds and the 6-7 Griner, who had 16 points and six rebounds the USA finally figured out Belgium’s collapsing zone defense in the second half when they used their size more effectively and inserted more movement into their low post offense.
The United States may have more superstars than anyone in this women’s World Cup. But Belgium, which got 23 points from 6-4 forward Emma Meesseman, won the hearts of the crowd here at Santiago Martin Arena when they jumped out to a 26-21 lead at the end of the first quarter, showing you don’t need to be on Sports Center every night to be competitive with the best teams in the world if you can shoot and play fundamentally sound basketball. The U.S. only led 40-39, at half.
“I’m really proud of my team,’’ Belgium national coach Phillip Mestdagh said. “We made their key players play a lot of minutes. It was a real chess match, but we didn’t play at a high enough level from quarter 2 on to beat the USA. At halftime, I warned our team the USA would make a run coming out of the locker room and that’s exactly what they did. They were just too strong for us.’’
Part of the reason for the American’s dominance is the IQ and leadership of iconic players like Taurasi and 38-year old point guard Sue Bird, who has four Olympic golds herself. “Normally, at halftime, I stay in the hallway with our coaches discussing what we want to stress to the players,’’ Staley said. “By the time, I walk in, Sue already has the second half game plan up on the blackboard. So it makes our job a lot easier, where we can pick out one or two things that we need to do, and rest is the players who have been here. That’s why the core players we have come and play year in an year out is an incredible advantage to the rest of the world, especially when we don’t have as much prep time to get ready for something like this.
“It’s the players. We have commitment from our players. It’s a large pool of players, and a lot of them don’t get the opportunity to play because Sue sticks around, this is her fifth world Cup and Diana Tarausi, they stick around. That creates success when you have that kind of continuity with the core players. For USA teams, it usually means we’re going to be very successful.’’
Bird finished with seven assists and is only one assist away from breaking Staley’s World Cup career record. “She’s not playing in the final,’’ Staley joked.
Bird was honored to have a shot at her coach’s record. “I think anytime you can break a record, it’s one of those things later, when it’s all said and done, you have true appreciation,’’ she said. “This one is a little different when is is something like Dawn who’s holding it.’’
