Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese may not have made the cut for the Team USA roster, but the pair of star rookies were more than happy to give their compatriots a helping hand in preparing for the Summer Olympics.
On Saturday, Team USA faced off against Team WNBA in the league’s 20th All-Star Game, marking the Stars and Stripes’ first exhibition before traveling to Paris to prepare for the Olympic games. Prior to tipoff, Cheryl Miller - the latter's head coach - asserted that her players were not going to pull any punches against the Olympians.
"I was excited, like really, really excited [to coach Team WNBA] until I found out that the team I'm coaching wants to beat the brakes off our Olympic team, and I'm like, 'OK, the pressure's on,'" she told reporters. "Now we got a game folks. We're going to have a game."
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Sure enough, Team WNBA didn’t take it easy on Team USA, with the underdogs appearing to play with a chip on their shoulder throughout the 117-109 win. Following a back-and-forth first half, the league representatives took control of the contest with a dominant third quarter, at one point leading by as many as 20 points.
Clark and Reese played integral roles in Team WNBA’s win. The Indiana Fever guard finished the night with 10 assists - the most in All-Star Game history by a rookie - while the Chicago Sky forward recorded a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
With just under seven minutes remaining in the contest, Clark drove to the basket and dished the ball to Reese, who finished off a contested layup and sent the crowd at the Footprint Center in Phoenix into a state of pandemonium.
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But it was Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale who stole the show during the second half, scoring 34 points - the most in WNBA All-Star game history - in the final two quarters en route to being named the game’s MVP.
Saturday’s victory for Team WNBA marks the second straight time under this specific All-Star Game format that Team USA has emerged on the losing end. Earlier in the week, New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart stressed the importance of building chemistry before the U.S. women's basketball team looks to attain an eighth consecutive gold medal.
Stewart: "When it's an Olympic year, it's always tough because we're locked into our W team for the first 25 games of the season. And now that we've made it to the Olympic break, we can kind of switch gears a little bit, focus on Team USA and just getting the chemistry, getting the feel, understanding that we're playing with people that we don't normally play with.
"The amount of respect between players makes it really exciting because we want to go out, we want to work and get everything kind of firing on all cylinders and enjoying this experience."
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