The United States Are Working Their Way To Gold One Pass At A Time


When the United States Women’s National Team arrived in Rio they brought with them the best women’s basketball players on the planet.

The team boasts four of the last five WNBA MVPs, and the last eight league scoring champions. This team, without question, was going to rack up buckets and do so in a hurry.

They haven’t disappointed through their first three Olympic games thus far, outscoring their opponents 334-203. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, the roster is a Rolodex of prodigious scorers. From Diana Taurasi’s lethal outside shooting touch, to Elena Delle Donne’s airtight mid-range game, to Sylvia Fowles, Tina Charles, and Brittney Griner’s preeminence in the paint, as soon as this team crosses half it’s not matter of if they’re going to score, but when.

For a roster with a propensity for so many points to come from so many different places, the only thing that could be a hindrance to a sixth-straight gold medal would be if they got in their own way. So, while the points scored have been mind-boggling, this team’s ability to pass the basketball may be even more impressive than their final scores.

In the team’s opening game against Senegal they set an Olympic record for most assists in a game with 36. They followed that historic performance up with 23 assists vs. Spain, and 30 against Serbia as they picked up their third straight win.

“When you play on this team, if you think you’re going to get 20 shots, you’re out of your mind. So you have to be efficient, you have to take good shots, you have to make sure you share the ball, and that’s something that coach Auriemma preaches every day,” Diana Taurasi said after the win over Spain on Monday. “That’s his makeup and we take after him and we’ve been playing team-oriented basketball, which makes it easy for you as an individual out there.”

While it won’t come as a shock that Sue Bird is leading the team with 5.3 assists per game, because she’s made a career off being a prolific passer, four of the five next assists leaders may come as a surprise.

Seimone Augustus (4.0), Elena Delle Donne (3.5), Tina Charles (3.3) and Maya Moore (3.3) are right behind Bird in the assist department, but out of these four only Moore is in the top 10 in assists per game in the WNBA. The next highest from the unlikely band of pass-masters is Charles, whose 3.7 dishes per game for the Liberty are the 14th most in the league.

This team-first attitude permeates the entire United States roster; every single member of the squad has at least one assist with the exception of Brittney Griner, who more than makes up for it with her dominance around the rim.

Through the United States’ first three games, their 29.7 assists a night are the most at among all competition in Rio, and four more than the squad with the second most, Canada.

With a total of 89 assists, the team that’s outscoring all on-comers is also out-passing them, and in turn, showcasing the greatness that comes with unselfishness. Every one of the players on the United States’ roster could score 30 or even 40 points on any given night, but there’s more to be said about getting your teammates involved. The 12 players selected to represent the USA in these Olympics are uninterested in individual accolades, instead preferring to share the spotlight with each other.

Not many know this mantra better than Tamika Catchings, who’s been a part of three Olympic gold medal runs already. “I think it’s that and you have to put your ego aside,” Catchings said after Wednesday’s win against Serbia. “You have to be willing to sacrifice for the good of the team.  Our ultimate goal is to win a gold medal.”

It’s not out of the question that this team could also set the Olympic record for most assists when the tournament comes to an end. After some quick calculations, the team is sitting on 89 assists, averaging just under 30 a game. Assuming they make the gold medal game and keep up that average, they would tally about 237 assists, easily clearing the 207 mark set by the 1996 gold medal team in Atlanta.

The buckets from the United States are beautiful, but the passes to set them up are equally as exceptional, and potentially could be just as record-worthy.