For a lot of the ladies’s 5×5 basketball competitors on the 2024 Olympics, Group USA comfortably has cruised at altitude. Though encountering occasional bouts of turbulence, the People at all times remained in management. Nonetheless, in Friday’s semifinal matchup towards Australia, Group USA launched into a better stratosphere, leaving little doubt of their dominance of the Opals, 85-64. A Sixtieth-straight win secured the People an opportunity at an eighth-straight gold.
On Sunday, Group USA will likely be meet France within the gold medal match at 9:30 a.m. ET (NBC). If the People strategy the crowning contest with a equally elevated intentionality and depth, it is going to be stunning if, quickly after the ultimate buzzer sounds, gold medals aren’t being positioned across the necks of the 12 members of Group USA because the US nationwide anthem performs and the Stars and Stripes are raised.
However, that doesn’t imply that the hosts is not going to attempt to make it exhausting on the USA. France survived a semifinal slugfest towards Belgium on Friday, overcoming poor taking pictures with will and need to within the time beyond regulation win, 81-75. A gifted roster, a raucous crowd and perhaps somewhat (or a heavy dose of) house cooking ought to permit Les Bleues to hold with Group USA. No less than for a half or so.
For all Gabby Williams’ good and savvy two-way play, Marine Johannès’ fearless shotmaking, Janelle Salaün’s defensive depth and Iliana Rupert’s intriguing versatility, the French should not have the steam required to maintain up with the People, the place two of the very best gamers in ladies’s basketball historical past—A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart—are flanked by a number of the greatest passers, shooters, defenders and shot blockers within the sport.
More and more, head coach Cheryl Reeve has regarded to press Group USA’s athletic benefits, devoting extra taking part in time to now-established starter Jackie Younger, one of many strongest, most explosive gamers on the roster, and rising tremendous sub Kahleah Copper, absolutely the quickest participant in a US uniform. Brittney Griner, together with her incomparable top, and Alyssa Thomas, geared up with muscle and motor, give the People additional athletic edges that France, probably the competitors’s second-most athletic group, merely can not compete with for a full 40 minutes.
Whereas this Olympic competitors has served as proof of the growing and increasing high quality of girls’s worldwide basketball, the game’s enhancing depth has not deterred the USA’ dominance. They’ve refused to permit the remainder of the world catch up. And on Sunday, anticipate the American Olympic dynasty to be furthered cemented with a 61st-straight win and an eighth-straight gold.
Recreation info
United States vs. France
When: Sunday, August 11 at 9:30 a.m. ET
The place: Bercy Area in Paris, France
Find out how to watch: NBC
