The U.S. women’s basketball team, an all-star lineup which lacks height but overflows with talent and experience, delivered an uneven performance against Croatia Saturday but blew the game wide open in the final period to win 81-56.
This same U.S. team beat Croatia by 55 points in a warm-up match last week. Apparently Croatia learned some of its opponent’s weaknesses, or the U.S. squad needed some time to deal with the pressure of playing in the Olympics.
Though the U.S. held Croatia to four points in the first quarter, the Americans took almost seven minutes to score their second field goal. Croatia kept hitting 30-pointers while the U.S. kept missing easy shots, heading into halftime up only three at 31–28.
The second team started the second period and played better, but it was a six-point game at the end of the third quarter. Then the starts came back on and started playing with all their skill, outscoring Croatia 26–9 in the final period.
The U.S. team shot 56 percent from the field in the final quarter (compared to 40 percent in the first three,) but gave up a lot of turnovers in all four periods.
The U.S. women’s team is composed of starters and stars from the WNBA; all of these ladies can play as well as any other players in the world. This team has the potential to win gold, but will need to play to its full potential to make that happen.
