Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Despite starting Olympic play 0-3, USA Basketball women’s 3×3 team is advancing to the semi-finals and will contend for a medal, an improbably comeback led by Hailey Van Lith, Dearica Hamby, Cierra Burdick, and Rhyne Howard.
When the U.S. women’s 3×3 basketball team fell to 0-3 in pool play, repeating as Olympic gold medalists seemed like a pipe dream. It appeared that a lack of chemistry and experience would prove insurmountable, and that USA Basketball’s selection decisions may have been off the mark.
The team — comprised of Hailey Van Lith, Dearica Hamby, Cierra Burdick, and Rhyne Howards — fell to Canada, Germany, and Azerbaijan to begin the Olympics. Part of the struggles may have been the result of circumstances out of their control — Cameron Brink, a key fixture of the program, was a late scratch due to an ACL tear. While Sparks teammate Dearica Hamby replaced Brink in the lineup, she had little time to acclimate to playing with her new 3×3 teammates. It also didn’t help that the Dream’s Rhyne Howard was out of commission for the month prior to the Olympics dealing with an ankle sprain.
Haley Van Lith and Cierra Burdick are the only two returning members from last year’s World Cup team that won the gold medal, and both expressed their disappointment with the slow start in the early days.
“We started playing soft, and they played much harder than us,” Van Lith said after a loss to Canada.
“We’re the most inexperienced team here,” Burdick said after the loss to Azerbaijan.
But, 3×3 basketball is a game of momentum, and Van Lith, Burdick, Hamby, and Howard were able to build some, rattling off five consecutive wins to secure their unlikely spot in the semifinals. Three days later after falling to 0-3 in Olympic pool play, they are right where they want to be: position to contend for an Olympic medal.
USA’s Saturday began with a 14-12 win against China. Hailey Van Lith the way in that one, scoring a game-high 6 points (on 4-9 shooting). That solidified the U.S. as the #3 seed in the tournament, which advanced them to the play-in round, played later on Saturday. (The #1 and #2 seeds automatically advance to the semi-finals, while seeds #3-6 advance to the play-in with a chance to compete for a semifinals berth).
Since China ended up ranked 6th overall, the two teams faced off again just four hours later, at 4pm ET. In that single-elimination contest, it was Dearica Hamby who took over. Hamby hit back-to-back shots from beyond the arc (each worth two points) to give USA an early lead, and finished with a game-high 9 points, including 3-3 from two-point range. Cierra Burdick and Rhyne Howard each added 5 points, while Burdick grabbed a team-high 8 rebounds.
The 21-13 win caps a dominant five-game win streak and demonstrates the 3×3 team’s resilience in the face of adversity. Now, the U.S. is one of four teams to move forward to the medal games.
Up Next
At the last Olympics, the U.S. came away with gold, but that was an entirely different roster, one led by Kelsey Plum, Allisha Gray, Stefanie Dolson, and Jackie Young. This roster has the chance to repeat on Monday, August 5th, when the semifinals take place.
Germany will face Canada at 11:30a and Spain will face the United States at 12:30pm ET. The winners of the two games will face off in the Gold Medal Final at 4pm, while the losers will compete for the bronze medal at 3pm ET.
