Would Caitlin Clark break the NCAA scoring report? Would she declare for the WNBA draft? Would she lead the Iowa Hawkeyes again to the Ultimate 4?
Clark has confronted a collection of burning questions since final fall. And “sure” was the reply to all of them.
However one other query lingers concerning the Indiana Fever guard who was picked No. 1 within the WNBA draft: Will she make the 2024 U.S. Olympic workforce?
As we get nearer to the beginning of the WNBA season — the primary few weeks of which can function Clark’s proving floor for the Paris Video games — we have a look at the method and the way USA Basketball historical past would possibly give a sign of Clark’s odds of constructing the workforce.
What are the fundamentals?
Twelve groups will compete within the Olympic 5-on-5 girls’s match: america, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Serbia and Spain. The roster dimension for every is 12. The People are going for his or her eighth consecutive gold medal and tenth gold general within the Olympics, which started girls’s basketball competitors in 1976.
Beginning in 2021, 3×3 basketball additionally grew to become an Olympic sport, however Clark is not in workforce pool. She is within the pool for 5-on-5. Nonetheless, she could not take part within the People’ final coaching camp, which was held concurrently the Ultimate 4 in Cleveland, the place Clark and Iowa have been competing. There will not be one other camp earlier than the U.S. workforce is chosen.
USA Basketball hasn’t set a particular date to announce the workforce members, aside from to say it will not be earlier than June 1. The 2021 workforce was named on June 21, a bit greater than month earlier than america’ first Olympic sport in Japan on July 27.
As a result of Clark wasn’t on the April camp or any earlier camp for the senior nationwide workforce — she has performed on USA Basketball junior groups — she has to make her case along with her WNBA play. The Fever open the season Tuesday at Connecticut.
Who picks the U.S. workforce members?
Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, who has intensive USA Basketball expertise, coaches the U.S. girls’s nationwide workforce. She’s going to present suggestions on the workforce make-up however does not choose the gamers. That is executed by a committee chaired by Connecticut Solar workforce president Jennifer Rizzotti, a former UConn and WNBA participant who additionally coached for a few years.
Becoming a member of Rizzotti on the committee are: South Carolina coach Daybreak Staley, the earlier U.S. Olympic coach who additionally performed in three Olympics; Dan Padover, Atlanta Dream normal supervisor; Bethany Donaphin, WNBA head of league operations; Seimone Augustus and Delisha Milton-Jones, each retired WNBA champions and Olympians.
Have there been controversial roster selections for the U.S. girls?
Within the girls’s sport, the Olympics are an enormous deal, and just about each prime American participant vies to be on the workforce. The choice committee’s dimension and make-up have different over time. However can the members absolutely divorce themselves from potential allegiances to any former or present gamers/teammates?
The hope is that they’re as goal as potential, and that the group balances out favoritisms/grudges. However controversial omissions nonetheless occur. Simply ask Nneka Ogwumike, who got here up on the brief finish in three Olympic cycles.
The 2012 No. 1 draft decide, and 2016 MVP and league champion, Ogwumike performed extensively for USA Basketball (together with within the FIBA World Cup) however was left off the Olympic workforce in 2012, 2016 and 2021. Of the snubs in USA Basketball historical past on the ladies’s facet — there have been some huge ones — what occurred to Ogwumike was the worst.
Will the choice be controversial this yr? Clark’s overwhelming recognition additionally has made her unpopular with some followers, which normally occurs in sports activities when a younger athlete particularly receives a whole lot of consideration. The committee cannot make everybody blissful, and it has so much to think about.
If Clark performs properly to begin her WNBA profession, can USA Basketball actually not embrace a participant who has been one of many largest headliners in all of sports activities in 2024 and may benefit from studying extra concerning the worldwide sport at age 22? Or will the committee strongly favor earlier Olympic expertise?
How troublesome will it’s for Clark to make the U.S. workforce?
Actually robust. Let’s take a look at the guards, the group Clark is attempting to crack.
The Phoenix Mercury’s Diana Taurasi, who’s trying to make her sixth Olympic workforce, is coming into her twentieth WNBA season and turns 42 in June. She has battled accidents in recent times, taking part in 26 of 40 Mercury video games final season.
Taurasi’s 20 years of nationwide workforce expertise can profit a U.S. group that does not have a lot preparation time. However the People received the 2022 FIBA World Cup with out Taurasi or Sue Hen, a five-time Olympian who retired that yr. Nonetheless, Taurasi appears a robust guess to make the Olympics once more.
Different guards who have already got received Olympic gold — both in 5-on-5 or 3×3 — are the Las Vegas Aces’ Chelsea Grey, Jackie Younger and Kelsey Plum; the Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, the Washington Mystics’ Ariel Atkins and the Dallas’ Wings Allisha Grey.
The New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and Phoenix’s Kahleah Copper, have been on the 2022 FIBA World Cup gold medal workforce. Laney-Hamilton and Copper are guard-forwards who can play the three place, as may Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard and the Aces’ Younger.
Clark spent most of her time at level guard at Iowa and likewise can play capturing guard. However to make this Olympics, she must be picked over gamers who’ve extra time within the professional sport than she does.
Caitlin Clark scores 21 factors in Fever debut
Caitlin Clark drops 21 factors in Fever debut as they fall to the Wings 79-76.
Does Staff USA ever prioritize youth/the longer term in Olympic choice?
Sure, however contemplate this: For the previous seven Olympics, from 1996 via 2021, the youngest participant on the U.S. girls’s hoops workforce was from both UConn or Tennessee. Clark, who turned 22 in January, can be the youngest participant on this Olympic workforce if she makes it. It could buck that longtime pattern, since she’s an Iowa graduate.
UConn and Tennessee have mixed to win 19 nationwide championships, so it is comprehensible why they’ve had so many Olympians of all ages. However with the expertise spreading out across the nation — UConn’s final NCAA title was in 2016 and Tennessee’s was in 2008 — extra future “youngest Olympians” can also come from different colleges.
Actually, that appears doubtless this yr, even when Clark does not make it. Fever teammate Aliyah Boston is 22 and in her second WNBA season after being the No. 1 decide and WNBA Rookie of the Yr in 2023. The South Carolina graduate — simply 42 days older than Clark — is taken into account a robust guess to make the Olympic workforce.
Who’s the youngest to play for the U.S. Olympic girls’s workforce?
Previous Dominion guard Nancy Lieberman, who turned 18 about two weeks earlier than the 1976 Montreal Video games. Fellow ODU participant Anne Donovan (1980) additionally was 18 however did not get to play within the Moscow Video games due to the U.S. boycott.
Till the 1992 Barcelona Video games, when the Worldwide Olympic Committee lastly moved away from requiring newbie standing for rivals, the U.S. males’s and ladies’s basketball groups have been made up largely of collegians or gamers not lengthy out of school. The NBA’s Dream Staff modified every thing in 1992. The U.S. girls additionally despatched a a lot older workforce that yr — all of the gamers have been out of school and competed professionally abroad — however that was the final U.S. squad to not win the Olympics. They took the bronze.
Staley, simply out of Virginia in 1992 as a two-time nationwide participant of the yr, did not make the 1992 Olympic workforce at 22. Her first Olympic workforce was in 1996. And the WNBA launched in 1997.
Since then, three gamers taken No. 1 within the WNBA draft in an Olympic yr have been named to the U.S. workforce: UConn’s Diana Taurasi (2004), Tennessee’s Candace Parker (2008) and UConn’s Breanna Stewart (2016). However Stanford’s Ogwumike (2012) wasn’t. All 4 received WNBA rookie of the yr. (LSU’s Sylvia Fowles additionally made the 2008 Olympic workforce as a WNBA rookie, however she is six months older than Parker.)
The opposite youngest gamers on the Olympic workforce since 1996: UConn’s Rebecca Lobo (1996), Tennessee’s Chamique Holdsclaw (2000), UConn’s Maya Moore (2012), and UConn’s Napheesa Collier (2021). The WNBA hadn’t launched but when Lobo completed at UConn in 1995; Holdsclaw and Moore each have been of their second WNBA seasons and Collier in her third.
Now, we wait to see if Clark would be the fourth WNBA No. 1 decide in an Olympic yr to make the U.S. workforce.