Staley's U.S. Team Advances to Gold Medal Game
TOKYO – South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley has her United States team on the brink of Olympic history after the Americans topped Serbia 79-59 in the semifinals Friday to advance to the gold medal game. The U.S. is looking for its seventh-straight gold medal, which would match the U.S. Olympic Men’ss Team’s streak of winning the first seven golds (1936-68) after the sport’s Olympic debut.
In Friday’s semifinal game, South Carolina alumna A’ja Wilson added nine points, three rebounds and two assists to the victory.
“It wasn’t our best overall performance,” USA head coach Staley said. “I thought we did a tremendous job defensively, just making it really hard for the Serbian team to get off clean looks. Offensively, I just thought we put enough points on the scoreboard to win. It wasn’t as clean and fluid as we would like, but at this stage of the game, you’re going to have to win a lot of different ways, and we found a way to win.”
While the offense was less fluid in Friday’s game, the U.S. defense was locked in. Serbia entered the game averaging 71.0 points, but netted just 59 against the Americans, who held the Serbs to just 30 percent shooting and out-rebounded them 46-39.
Like the quarterfinal game, the U.S. came out strong in the first quarter, establishing a 25-12 lead after the opening 10 minutes. After Serbia took an early 4-3 lead, the Americans launched an 8-0 run that started with a Wilson midrange jumper and ended with her hitting a pair free throws to give the U.S. an 11-4 lead midway through the period.
Both teams tailed off offensively in the second quarter, but the Americans had enough to add seven points to their lead, taking a 41-23 lead into halftime. The 18-point lead was enough to keep the Serbs at bay in the second half to set up the potential for history in the gold medal game.
The United States will face Japan in the gold medal game, which is slated for 10:30 p.m. ET on Sat., Aug. 7. The Americans topped Japan 86-69 during preliminary round action in Group B. Japan defeated France in the other semifinal to set up the rematch for the gold medal. The game will air on NBC.
