U.S. women’s 3x3 team wins 5 straight to shake off awful start and reach semifinals at Paris Games

PARIS (AP) — There was some concern when the defending champion U.S. women’s 3x3 team dropped its first three games of the Paris Olympics.

Just not with the players.

“USA basketball is not used to losing,” team member Cierra Burdick said. “So, when you lose three in a row, it’s like everybody is kind of shocked and everybody’s rooting against us.”

But Burdick and teammates Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard and Hailey Van Lith stayed focused after the terrible start that included losses to Germany, Azerbaijan and Australia. They remained calm and reeled off five consecutive wins to earn a spot in Monday’s semifinals against Spain.

“We wouldn’t change a single thing that happened,” Hamby said. “We needed those three losses to kind of wake us up and see that although we may be more talented, we’ve got to figure out a way to dig deep and pull out wins and compete. This game doesn’t allow a lot of room for error and we’re finding chemistry so we’re happy.”

Germany and Canada play in the other semifinal Monday.

Hamby was added to the team after Cameron Brink tore an ACL on June 18. Her late addition left the U.S. with little time to gel before competition began.

Even as the U.S. was losing early, there were signs that the team was starting to figure things out. The defense began to improve and the other women started finding Hamby more often in the lane for easy shots.

When the U.S. faced Spain in the fourth game, it used a balanced scoring attack and tenacious defense to collect its first win with a 17-11 victory.

“When we beat Spain the first time ... we really felt like we controlled the game with our defense,” Van Lith said. “And so I feel like that really turned the table for us and then we were like: ‘OK ... people can’t just run what they want on us and it’s hard for them to score.’ So, that was a game where I think we really made a step.”

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Wins over France, Canada and China followed in pool play before a second victory over China in Saturday night’s play-in game secured a spot in the semifinals.

“I think the confidence is growing just because we’re getting better,” Howard said.

And with a shot to repeat as gold medalists coming up on Monday, the players are excited because as far as they’ve come, they know they can still get much better.

“Where we started, it was rough,” Howard said. “But all you can ask for is growth, getting one percent better each day, each game and that’s what we’ve done and so we’re just continuing to look to grow as a team and as players and just continue to learn this game and keep it going for gold.”

Hamby, who plays for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, had her best game of the tournament in the play-in against China. She had nine points and five rebounds and made all three of her 2-point attempts in the 21-13 win.

She knows she’ll have to keep playing well for the U.S. to reach its goal, but she embraces the challenge.

“Gold is the standard for USAB and we’re trying to live up to that,” she said. “We started 0-3 so we kind of took the pressure off ourselves and we found our fun and are enjoying it and here we are.”