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Scott Stump
The U.S. women’s national team is sending a powerhouse squad of the WNBA’s brightest stars to play in the upcoming FIBA World Cup in Germany.
In a TODAY exclusive on Aug. 6, Naismith Hall of Famer and U.S. women’s national team managing director Sue Bird announced the 12-player U.S. roster that will try to win USA Basketball’s fifth straight title at the quadrennial event.
It’s a who’s who of the biggest names in women’s basketball, led by four-time WNBA Most Valuable Player A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces.
Seven of the players from the 2024 U.S. Olympic team that stormed to a gold medal in Paris are also on the roster for the FIBA World Cup. That group includes Wilson, veteran New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart and Minnesota Lynx All-Star Napheesa Collier, who recently returned from injury for the WNBA’s top team.
Notable newcomers to the FIBA World Cup roster include Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers and Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese. They add an injection of youth and precocious talent to an experienced squad.
“Two years from now we’ve got the Olympics,” Bird said on TODAY. “You have to kind of always be thinking about the future while in the present, so what I love about this team, it’s got experience — internationally, WNBA, you name it. It also has youth. You need both those energies. For the young players especially, they’ll get really good experience.”
Clark’s omission from the 2024 Olympic team sparked a debate about whether the immensely popular All-Star guard should have been part of the squad, but she will be on the floor in Germany.
Bird, who is a four-time FIBA World Cup champion and 13-time WNBA All-Star herself, knows there could be some complaints about which players did not make the FIBA roster.
“You always expect a little bit of it, right?” Bird said. “You could probably put another roster of 12 in this World Cup, and they would be just as competitive. That’s how rich USA Basketball is for women.
“But I think in terms of the critique and people talking about it, I view it as a good thing,” she continued. “It’s going to happen. It means people are paying attention, it means engagement, it means they care, so that’s kind of how I look at it.”
Bird views one team in particular as USA Basketball’s main competition.
“I mean, of course, France,” Bird said. “We only won by a couple points in Paris (in the 2024 Olympics). They have a ton of talent. A lot of that talent is in the WNBA now, you can go watch them. Every time I watch a game and there’s a French player playing, I’m like, ‘Oh Lord, it’s going to be tough.’”
The U.S. team’s head coach will be Olympic gold medalist Kara Lawson, a former star player who was an assistant coach on the 2022 U.S. team that won the FIBA World Cup title.
The FIBA World Cup features the world’s top 16 national teams playing 36 games from Sept. 4 to 13 in Berlin. The U.S. team is in Group D with Czechia, China and Italy. The Americans are a combined 11-1 all time against those three nations in the FIBA World Cup, and their only loss came in 1967 against Italy. The top three teams in each group advance to the knockout round.
The U.S. women’s national team has dominated international competition for years, which includes a 61-game winning streak and eight straight gold medals in Olympic play. They have won four straight FIBA World Cup titles, six of the last seven, and a record 11 overall.
The full FIBA World Cup roster for USA Basketball is as follows:
Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here!) that brings the day’s news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and uplifting stories right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else.
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