The subsequent period of USA Basketball arrived in Berlin with a brand new look, a brand new really feel and, maybe most significantly, a brand new era in line to hold the heavy weight of the crimson, white and blue.
The FIBA Ladies’s Basketball World Cup opens Friday in Germany, with the previous and way forward for USA Basketball sharing the courtroom because the People open the competitors in opposition to China.
This isn’t simply one other title protection. It’s the first main stress take a look at of what’s to return subsequent for USA Basketball.
forward of the Ladies’s Basketball World Cup match between
China and the US on Sept. 3, 2026, in Berlin. AP Photograph/Ebrahim Noroozi
This iteration of Group USA represents the clearest altering of guards American ladies’s basketball has seen in a long time. It’s youthful, much less skilled and, within the phrases of Paige Bueckers, extra “turnt.”
The newcomers are headlined by Caitlin Clark, Bueckers and Angel Reese.
The veteran mainstays embrace Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Copper, Jackie Younger and Chelsea Grey, who, at 33, is the oldest on the roster.
The youth motion turned much more pronounced when accidents dominated out A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum earlier this week, leading to Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron being referred to as up.
Even amid this transition interval, the worldwide throne stays America’s to lose.
The 2026 roster is comparatively inexperienced by Group USA requirements. Solely three gamers have competed in a World Cup earlier than, leaving 9 People on this match for the primary time.
Six gamers are below 25: Clark, Bueckers, Reese, Iriafen, Citron and Aliyah Boston.
Within the sports activities world, this degree of personnel turnover and youth injection could be deemed a “rebuild,” which just about at all times comes with tempered expectations.
Whereas it’s an uncommon state of affairs for the U.S., something in need of one other World Cup title could be seen as a disappointment.
Group USA is undoubtedly the staff to beat though the competitors on the worldwide degree arguably has by no means been higher.
“That’s an apparent assertion that the world is enhancing,” USA Basketball head coach Kara Lawson informed reporters earlier this week. “If you have a look at rosters, there’s plenty of high-quality gamers. I feel the depth of those rosters is actually sturdy. I feel it’s going to be essentially the most tough World Cup to win that we’ve had due to that, which is thrilling. It is best to need it to be tough. It needs to be onerous. It’s a World Cup.”
Whereas Sue Chook’s days of operating level on the ground are lengthy over, she was put accountable for setting up the roster as the primary USA Basketball managing director for the ladies’s nationwide staff.
It’s a becoming position for Chook, who joined Diana Taurasi in spearheading a era that made successful for Group USA really feel inevitable.
Chook needed to strike a stability between preserving what made USA Basketball dominant and making ready the subsequent era to take over.
She’s already proven a willingness to make uncomfortable decisions, similar to leaving 28-year-old Olympic gold medalist Sabrina Ionescu off the upcoming roster.
“I needed to have a combination of individuals with expertise and a superb combination of individuals with youth,” Chook informed reporters final month after the World Cup roster was revealed. “That units us up for the long run, as properly. But additionally, a staff that enhances one another and might go on the courtroom and win gold. That’s at all times the North Star in all of those choices that I’ve made.”
The World Cup subject has turn into deeper. The margins for error are thinner. And the stress on the U.S. this month is big.
A number of the faces and names have modified for Group USA. The model, below Lawson, is perhaps totally different, too.
However the expectation stays the identical.
“There’s a whole lot of newness to our roster,” Lawson mentioned. “We’d like [the young players’] manufacturing, we want their confidence, we want their video games to win this match. And in order that’s why they’re right here. They’re right here to assist us win.”
