Team USA is Going Back to School
College tour will give fans their first look at who they might be cheering on in Tokyo
The first official games of the 2019–20 college basketball season are November 5, and the opening women’s basketball games of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are 271 days away. In early preparation for the latter, a squad of 12 Team USA players will be taking on four top college teams this November, starting November 2. There’s also a second round of games already planned for next year. Team USA also did college tours preceding the 1996 (20–0), 2000 (11–1), and 2008 Olympics (8–0), and went 39–1 in those games, losing to Tennessee by a single point during the 1999 tour.
The team’s opening game of the 2019 fall tour is at Stanford, the only team they’ve played on all three previous tours. It will be the team’s first game since a 6–0 FIBA AmeriCup gold medal run in September, in which they outscored opponents 532–300, with the closest game being a 16-point win against Brazil.
After leaving Palo Alto, Team USA will head up to Oregon State to take on the Beavers on November 4, before traveling to College Station on November 7 to take on Texas A&M. The Aggies are the only other team on this year’s tour that Team USA played on a previous one. Their final stop on the fall tour is a bounce back up to Oregon to take on the Ducks in Eugene on November 9.
Stanford is not only the one team the USA squad has faced on every previous tour (at least so far), but the only one they will take on that has an alumna on this year’s roster: Nneka Ogwumike. She is one of the eight players committed to Team USA for all five training segments leading up to the Olympics. She is joined on that list by Sue Bird, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Sylvia Fowles, Chelsea Gray, Diana Taurasi, A’ja Wilson, and Elena Delle Donne. Delle Donne, however, will unfortunately miss the fall tour due to the back injury she suffered during the WNBA Finals, and Allisha Gray will be on the roster in her stead. Also on the roster for the college tour are Seimone Augustus, Layshia Clarendon, Napheesa Collier, and Kelsey Plum. Gray will miss the first game, and Plum will miss the first two.
All four squads Team USA will take on made at least the Sweet 16 of the 2019 NCAA tournament, Stanford made the Elite Eight, and Oregon made it all the way to the Final Four. As for the pros, among the 12 players are 30 Final Four appearances, 11 title game appearances and eight national titles, led by Taurasi’s three.
Overall, it should be a great chance for fans of women’s basketball to see the beginnings of the national team that will head to Japan next year. The Stanford and Oregon State games will be excellent appetizers for the NCAA season, which starts in full only 13 hours after the Beavers and Team USA tip-off. Yes, there’s a pair of games at 11 a.m. ET on November 5. Get excited. All of us at HHS certainly are. Check back November 1 for the first Games to Watch of the season…
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