Rio de Janeiro – The U.S. women's Olympic basketball team dominates the world with talent. It also dominates because of willingness.
While only two players return from the roster of the U.S. men's team that won gold in London, nine of the 12 women on the U.S. team are back. While some of the men declined invitations because of fatigue or injury concerns, the turnover on the women's roster was due to the selection process. The best American women rarely turn down a chance to play for love of sport and country.
"Before there was a WNBA or a WBL, the Olympics were what we had to look forward to," Seimone Augustus of the Lynx said. "I remember having a poster of the USA women up in my room — Sheryl Swoopes and Teresa Edwards and Lisa Leslie and Rebecca Lobo on that poster. I probably still have that poster. That's what I wanted to be. That's what I wanted to do."
Augustus has had nagging injuries during her career. She is 32 and at a juncture of her career where male players start babying their knees and ankles. She, like many other top women basketball players, never considered not playing.
"For us, it's a huge point of pride," Lynx guard Lindsay Whalen said. "It's like being at the top of the game.
Before there was a WNBA and even college scholarships for women, there was the Olympics. That was always a goal you could have, she said. Now there's more opportunities for scholarships and there is the WNBA, but that '96 team started the WNBA, for the most part.
"This has always been something that I don't think any of us would ever turn down," Whalen said.
USA Basketball for the first time put together and extensively trained a dream team for the '96 Olympics in Atlanta. Players such as Swoopes and Leslie led the Americans to an 8-0 record and a gold medal game victory over Brazil in front of more than 32,000 fans.
