Maybe the fact that she is still a student and being away for 2 weeks might be quite a hardship for a student? So perhaps there was an agreement that she would just spend limited time gaining experience
I'm quite surprised that Austin and Thomas made the team ahead of Dolson and Boston.
Meh. She's already missed 3-4 weeks of classes, what's 2 more weeks particularly since she's half-a-world away. She would not have been the first collegiate player to make a WC team. Parker, Maya and Stewie handled it.
That would be something considering Geno has zero involvement with USA Basketball as far as I can tell. Dawn is a member of the selection committee.
I knew Geno is no longer involved (at least not in any official capacity), but I didn't know Dawn was on the selection committee.
I'm not questioning Thomas's ability, just her style of play and being added late to a group of players she's never played with. We'll see how CR chooses to use her.
I'm not surprised, she's a solid player but she doesn't have the experience of playing at this level like the others. There's also the familiarity in that many of the players chosen have their coaches on the sidelines and they'll be able to get the most out of their players. The only one that really shocked me was Laney over Howard, hopefully that means she's shaken off the rust these past few weeks.
Seeing Austin and not Boston is a surprise to me. Austin is very good and had a great WNBA rookie year but I don't see her being at the level of Boston on any team.
I can see a case for it, but I think Austin provides a different look and proved to be decent battling amongst the bigs of the W. I think Boston biggest competition would have been Brionna Jones and I can't fault then choosing Jones over her, she'll get her chance in the years to come.
The commitments as a student are large, but there are several NCAA players who are competing in this tournament, including her teammate Amihere for Canada. Canada's team has at least 3 players who are playing for NCAA teams this season on their roster.
Stewie should be playing the wing, she is a matchup nightmare.
She's only played wing for USA Basketball as it is not her natural position. She was MOP of the 2018 World Cup and MVP of the Tokyo Olympics playing out of position.
i doubt it's that simple. Reeve is the head coach yet Power and McBride didn't make it past training camp in the US.
Given the layout of the roster, it could go either way. Of course it all depends on who else among the potential 3s, 4s and 5s gets significant PT besides Wilson. All other options are very inexperienced in major competition. Atkins was on the team in Tokyo but played very little.
Atkins will start ahead of Lloyd at SG
She played in the last two competitive-ish games for the United States:
Yeah, I'm fine with using Power Rankings to make a bold prediction, but Japan has proven several times that, even with changes in coaching and personnel, they should be considered the top of the three Asia-Oceania powers until one of the other two actually defeats them.
