For the 2022 FIBA World Cup, Team USA has a new look, a new coach, and several new players.
For the 2022 FIBA World Cup, Team USA has a new look, a new coach, and several new players
A little more than seven days before USA B-ball goes to Australia for the 2022 FIBA World Cup, various countenances of the celebrated program - - some for the beyond twenty years - - are no place to be seen at the instructional course in Las Vegas.
There's no Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi on the floor, nor individual Group USA stalwarts Brittney Griner, Sylvia Fowles and Tina Charles - - a gathering that has joined for 19 Olympic gold decorations. Not even A'ja Wilson or Breanna Stewart are around right now, the previous set to join the group subsequent to bringing home her most memorable WNBA championship on Sunday which had seen on Unifrance.
All things considered, camp is brimming with new faces seeking a spot on the World Cup program: a blend of anticipated stars like Sabrina Ionescu and Shakira Austin, and more settled players like Kahleah Copper and Betnijah Laney, who still can't seem to procure call-ups for the two greatest global competitions: the Olympics and the World Cup.
"It's difficult on the grounds that there are voids out of control," Cheryl Reeve, who took over as public group mentor from Day break Staley in December, said of the unlucky deficiencies.
In Reeve's most memorable significant global competition in charge, which starts Wednesday against Belgium (9:20 p.m. ET on ESPN+), spectators will get their most memorable look at how perhaps of sports' best tradition will deal with a monstrous top-down reorganizing. The last program includes a solitary player in her 30s (Alyssa Thomas) and only five leftovers from the 2020 Olympic group. In question? A fourth continuous World Cup decoration beginning around 2010.
USA B-ball has likewise lost only one game over the beyond six World Cups (previously known as Big showdown) and has a much longer series of wins at the Olympics, notwithstanding an occasionally rough execution in Tokyo.
"We're shortly of a progress," Stewart told ESPN. "Yet, it truly offers a chance for youthful players to come in and show what they have and assist with taking USA Ball to a higher level - - and comprehend that everyone needs to beat us.
 |
|
"No one believes us should win gold. Nevertheless, our objective each time that we are playing is to win the whole thing."
Program ease and late appearances are the same old thing for Group USA, yet this year specifically, the gathering has been exploring gigantic vulnerability. Bird and Fowles reported their retirements recently. Taurasi managed a WNBA 안전 스포츠사이트 추천 season-finishing quad injury. Charles said she believed she had "served my time." And nobody might have expected the nonappearances of Griner - - who has been improperly confined in Russia for more than 200 days - - or of Skylar Diggins-Smith and Napheesa Collier, both first-time Olympians in Tokyo. The previous left the Phoenix Mercury middle of the season for individual reasons, and the last option is as yet working herself back from pregnancy and maternity leave.
Stewart, Wilson, Jewell Loyd, Ariel Atkins and Chelsea Dim are the main players with Olympic 5-on-5 experience, while Kelsey Plum (a 3x3 Olympian), Stewart, Wilson and Loyd are the only ones to have contended in the past World Cup in 2018. Wilson, Dark and Plum will show up in Sydney in the wake of bringing home the 2022 WNBA championship with the Las Vegas Pros and commending with a procession down the Strip. Brionna Jones and Thomas of the 2022 next in line Connecticut Sun will likewise show up later than expected.
What's more, Sydney will stamp the USA B-ball presentations of Jones, Thomas, Ionescu, Laney, Copper and Austin in a significant global contest.
A'ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart are the clear captains of a rested team at the FIBA World Cup in Australia after helping Team USA win gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
The returners
Stewart and Wilson are the reasonable presumptive successors of the USA B-ball tradition, particularly after the Tokyo Olympics. Close by Griner, they were the ones in particular who arrived at the midpoint of twofold figure scoring in Tokyo, at 15.0 and 16.5 focuses per game, separately.
The death of the mallet happened very quickly.
"After we won gold, [Bird] was like, 'OK, it's your turn currently,'" said Wilson, who won her second WNBA MVP prize, first Cautious Player of the Year grant and first WNBA title this year. "I'm like, 'Huh?' When you truly consider it, it's me and Stewie. Everybody's gone."
Where Stewart and Wilson could already hope to Bird, Taurasi, Fowles and others as the veteran chiefs, they're currently the ones entrusted with taking on the position in Australia... READ MORE
"I don't have the foggiest idea who will talk in the breaks now," Wilson said, laughing apprehensively. "We'll sort it out. In any case, no, it's something extraordinary. They've established an extraordinary starting point for us to step in as the cutting edge to lead.
"I'm presumably alarmed, yet I'm energized also to get back out there with different greats. We should go get this gold."
Going into her third World Cup, Stewart - - who showed up in Australia a couple of days after most of Group USA - - is the most experienced player remaining. She is one of two (the other being Seattle Tempest colleague Loyd) players on the momentum program who found the middle value of somewhere around 20 minutes for every game at the 2018 World Cup.
Stewart is particularly conscious of her initiative obligations.
"Ensuring everybody is agreeable and adjusting and learning and not underestimating these minutes," she said. "I believe it's sort of narrow minded in the event that you don't talk and on the off chance that you don't utilize your experience to help other people, so I very need to ensure that I'm making the most of that and assisting the group as best I with canning for what we do here in Australia, yet additionally to take it for whether they're going abroad or the offseason or no matter what."
She and Wilson will not need to do it completely alone. Dark and Loyd, who both arrived at the midpoint of just shy of 20 minutes for each game in Tokyo, alongside Atkins will help shore up the backcourt. Dark, at 29 one of the more established individuals from the World Cup group and the recently delegated WNBA 메이저놀이터 목록 Finals MVP, will be especially looked to as a story general in the midst of Bird's retirement and Diggins-Smith's nonattendance.
"I certainly need to be essential for holding up that heritage and being essential for that group," she said. "I figure we can proceed with that. We have certain individuals in there that have insight, and there will be new individuals. It's continuously framing, it's liquid, as that is energizing also."
Loyd said, "Clearly, it will be somewhat unique. "Everybody has different learning styles, initiative styles. Be that as it may, I know we're not around here abandoned without anyone else. We've gained from our veterans, and presently we're prepared to get rolling."
Indeed, even Atkins, who played a restricted part off the seat at the Olympics, is taking on additional reps at point monitor until Dark shows up. She trusts she can bring a portion of the authority she saw in plain view during her time in Tokyo to Australia.
"Simply their capacity to either quiet individuals down or publicity individuals up," Atkins said on what she consumed from the greats she played with all through her most memorable Olympics. "I simply feel that was a truly cool part for me, figuring out how to get us moving and how to get us in specific stuff to assist us with scoring. Indeed, even Chelsea being a point monitor for us in USA. Simply their capacity to get the rush of the group, and sort of direct it something other than allowing it to stream."
