WBB: Staley and Wilson lead USA to Gold

The Americans held off upstart Japan 90-75 for their 55th consecutive Olympic win. The Japanese gave the Americans fits in their first meeting in the group stage. Japan makes up for its lack of size with three-point shooting, a frenetic pace, and crisp, efficient cutting and passing. But the Japanese have no answer for the Americans’ size.

In blowout wins over Australia and Serbia, Staley was able to rest Wilson and Brittney Griner in the second half. They were fresh - and dominant - in the gold medal game. Griner scored 30 points with five rebounds, while Wilson, playing on her 25th birthday, had 19 points, seven rebounds, five assists, and five blocks (an American Olympic single-game record). Fittingly, they finished tied for the scoring lead for the Olympics. About the only thing Wilson didn’t do was make breakaway layups: she was 0-2 for the Olympics.

The road to the seventh gold medal was sometimes rocky. The Olympics were delayed by a year due to the pandemic, and when the American team finally got together, they dropped exhibition games against the WNBA All-Stars and Australia. In three sometimes uninspiring wins in the group stage, Wilson had to play the hero. Things started to click in the elimination stage, and by the gold medal game Team USA was in cruise control.

Team USA’s current winning streak dates back to the bronze medal game in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The streak began in earnest four years later, with a barnstorming team that featured Staley as a player. A two-year run culminated in a dominant gold medal run in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The success of that team led to the creation of the WNBA and the birth of modern women’s basketball.

Staley now has six Olympic gold medals to her name. She won three as a player, two as an assistant, and now can add a gold medal as a head coach. She is, as player, assistant, and head coach, undefeated in the Olympics. She has lost just twice as a member of Team USA: as a player in the 1994 World Championship semifinals, and as an assistant coach in the 2006 World Cup semifinals. Staley is just the third woman to win a medal as a player and coach, following Pat Summitt (amusingly listed as the anonymous-sounding Patricia Head in the USA Basketball records) and mentor Anne Donovan. She and Donovan both won gold as a player and coach. Staley is the first Black woman to win as coach (second if you count Kara Lawson and the 3x3 team).

Wilson joins Shannon Johnson as the only two former Gamecocks to medal in the Olympics in 5x5 basketball. Earlier in the Olympics, former Gamecock Allisha Gray won a medal in 3x3 basketball. All three players won gold. Wilson (Hopkins) joins Johnson (Hartsville) and Katrina McClain (Charleston) as the only South Carolina natives to win an Olympic medal in basketball. McClain, who attended the University of Georgia, won gold in 1988 and 1996 and bronze in 1992. Three other Gamecock women’s basketball players played in the Olympics for other countries: Laeticia Amihere (Canada, 2020), Iva Sliskovic (Croatia, 2012) and Ilona Burgrova (Czech Republic, 2012).

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