Caitlin Clark’s exclusion from the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team was the biggest talking point of the team’s roster announcement in early June.
Less than two months later, Dawn Staley said Clark’s recent form might have commanded a place on the team.
“Caitlin is just a rookie in the WNBA and wasn’t playing bad, but wasn’t playing like she’s playing now,” Staley, a member of the selection committee that constructed the Team USA roster, told NBC on Sunday.
“If we had to do it all over again, with the way she’s playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she’s playing head and shoulders above a lot of people. She’s shooting the ball extremely well. She’s an elite passer. She’s just got a great basketball IQ. And she’s a little more seasoned in the pro game than she was two months ago.”
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In 13 games since the roster announcement on June 11, Clark has averaged 17.9 points, 10.4 assists and 6.7 rebounds per game on 43.4 percent shooting for the Indiana Fever. Before the announcement, she was averaging 16.3 points, 6.0 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game on 37 percent shooting in 13 games.
In July, she became the first rookie in WNBA history to record a triple-double and broke the WNBA single-game assist record. She also had 10 assists in helping the Team WNBA defeat the U.S. Olympic team in the WNBA All-Star Game.
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Off the court, Clark’s play has helped bring record viewership to women’s basketball. The broadcast for her final college game at Iowa in April peaked at 24.1 million viewers, while her clash with Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky on June 25 averaged 2.302 million viewers on ESPN, the company’s most-watched WNBA game in 23 years.
The U.S. opted for a veteran roster as it chases its eighth consecutive gold medal. The youngest players — Sabrina Ionescu and Jackie Young — are 26 years old. National team committee chair Jen Rizzotti cited experience when discussing the roster decisions in June.
“We were supposed to be giving (coach) Cheryl Reeve a team that has experience and familiarity with international competition, familiarity with the coaching system, leadership abilities, versatility, depth at every position,” Rizzotti told The Athletic. “The 12 that we selected, we felt were the best when it boiled down to a basketball decision.”
The U.S. women will play their first game Monday, facing Japan at 3 p.m. ET.
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(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
