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U.S. women's basketball Olympic roster breakdown: Experience leads hunt for another gold

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1 year ago

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U.S. women's basketball Olympic roster breakdown: Experience leads hunt for another gold

The U.S. women’s basketball roster was officially announced Tuesday, and in six weeks, the 12 players will go after a record eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal. With seven players who’ve already appeared on Team USA (and an additional two who were on the three-on-three team, known as 3×3, the last time around), this is an experienced group that enters the Games as the favorite.

Experience and maturity are only heightened considering the roster skews toward players in their late 20s; the youngest players are 26 and Diana Taurasi at 42 is the oldest. Unlike previous iterations of Olympic rosters, no recent college grads were included. Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark’s exclusion from the roster has been the subject of much debate, and reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston also wasn’t selected.

With 12 versatile, slightly older players, coach Cheryl Reeve has plenty of flexibility with lineups and rotations, similar to how the defensive-oriented coach operates with her Minnesota Lynx squad. She is known for getting the most out of her players, orchestrating the Lynx’s run in the 2010s to four WNBA titles in seven seasons. This will be Reeve’s first time at the helm of the national team at the Olympics. She was named the head coach for this cycle in 2021 after being an assistant for both Geno Auriemma (2016) and Dawn Staley (2020).

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Get to know the players who will represent Team USA in France this summer.

Collier, 27, was the 11th or 12th player on the Tokyo roster, but for this Olympics, she’s a probable starter alongside Chelsea Gray, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart. Her game has continued to evolve (which is no surprise considering Reeve is her coach with the Lynx) — she’s shooting 40 percent on 3-pointers this WNBA season. Collier showed in an Olympic qualifier game earlier this year that she potentially can become a statistical leader, after tallying 23 points, 7 rebounds and 3 steals in a tightly-contested game against Belgium.

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Copper, 29, is playing the best basketball of her career in her first season with the Phoenix Mercury, averaging 24 points a game while shooting 39 percent from long range as a high-volume 3-point shooter. Unlike many other players on this Olympic roster who came up through the youth system, Copper’s first time in the Team USA pool was in 2021, and her game has only gone up. Her versatility is accentuated on defense, where she can guard multiple positions, both matching up with larger, more physical players and keeping step with perimeter guards.

Gray, 31, has yet to play this WNBA season after suffering a leg injury during the 2023 WNBA Finals. However, Team USA said it had been in regular communication with Gray and her medical team and feel confident she’ll be able to compete in France. Assuming that holds true, Gray will be the team’s best passer and its engine. For the Las Vegas Aces, she has been a dynamic scorer-facilitator, but if her role from the 2022 World Cup repeats, expect Gray to settle in more as a primary facilitator, especially because there’s not another pure point guard on the roster. Reeve will need a high-assist, low-risk floor general, and that’s Gray.

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When Griner, 33, returned to the U.S. from her 10-month detainment in Russia, she said she’d only go overseas again to play for her country in the Olympics. Now, that’s happening as Griner makes her third Olympic roster. She recently returned to the floor in the WNBA after recovering from a toe fracture, but even in two games, she looks great, averaging 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3 assists and 1.5 blocks a game (in 30 minutes of play). She started all six games in Team USA’s 2021 run in Tokyo (averaging 16.5 points and over 7 rebounds a game while shooting nearly 70 percent). At 6-foot-9, she’s the tallest player on the roster, providing Team USA an instant mismatch against any opponent.

Napheesa Collier

A young role player the last Olympic cycle, Napheesa Collier now steps into a more prominent position for Paris. (Dirk Waem / BELGA MAG / AFP via Getty Images)

Ionescu, 26, is another potential backup ballhandler who likely will split responsibilities with other guards, but her versatility as a scorer and rebounder will come in handy. Like Alyssa Thomas, Ionescu can go off for a triple-double. With her long range and quick release, she could be used off the bench to help build a lead, or in close games, she could be inserted for her reliable free-throw shooting (over 90 percent for her WNBA career).

With no true backup point guard on the roster, Loyd, 30, likely will be called into some backup ballhandling responsibilities — a task Team USA probably will take on by committee. Loyd could be considered for the final starter, a spot that remains a bit of a question mark and might be determined by game-specific matchups. She’s a tried-and-true scorer and an excellent rebounder who can get Team USA out on the break and either distribute or score. One of the many perks of this roster is the number of players who have shown they can catch fire even after a slump, and Loyd is one of those.

A member of the inaugural 3×3 squad, Plum, 29, could find herself in that starting two-guard spot, or she could be a burst of energy and instant scorer off the bench. She’s a high-volume 3-point shooter for the Aces, but she can also get downhill and finish through contact. With Gray out, the Aces have shared facilitating duties, and Plum is averaging nearly 5 assists a game. Her familiarity with Wilson, Gray and Jackie Young is an important benefit for potential playing time, and that unit could be used as a “reset” at times, especially early in pool play, when Team USA needs to get on the same page.

Breanna Stewart, F

At 29, Stewart will play in her third Olympics. In tandem with Wilson, Stewart provides versatility and steadiness on both ends of the floor. Her 3-point shooting has been down this WNBA season, but Stewart is a three-level scorer with a knack for making defensive plays. Expect Stewart and Wilson to start regardless of the matchup as Reeve uses them as centerpieces and builds out from there.

Diana Taurasi, G

This will be Taurasi’s sixth Olympics. Her first came in 2004 in Athens, where at 22 she was the youngest player on the team. Her eldest teammate that year? Then-34-year-old Dawn Staley, who — 16 years later — would coach Taurasi at the Tokyo Olympics. Taurasi’s deft passing and sharp shooting will be helpful, but her experience is irreplaceable compared to any other player in the Team USA pool. “We knew Diana’s basketball ability would be clutch for us in so many moments, but we also knew that her leadership was something this team didn’t have,” U.S. women’s national team committee chair Jen Rizzotti said.

Diana Taurasi

Diana Taurasi, a staple of the U.S. national team for two decades, will go for her sixth Olympic gold medal. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

Alyssa Thomas, F

Known as “The Engine” in the WNBA, Thomas, 32, is a triple-double threat every night in the league. She’s not the tallest on any court, but she might be the strongest 6-2 player in the league. The common storyline for commentators about the 10-year vet is that Thomas has two torn labrums (cartilage in her shoulders) so she uses an unconventional shooting form. However, that hasn’t stopped Thomas from being so effective that Reeve actually asked her to return to the Team USA player pool before the 2022 World Cup after Thomas spent several years on the outside looking in.

A’ja Wilson, F

The two-time WNBA MVP has been successful in Olympic and international play. As an Olympic rookie in Tokyo, Wilson was a standout, averaging over 16 points and 7 rebounds a game while playing for Staley, her former coach at South Carolina.  She’ll again have a comfort level in France from being surrounded by three of her Aces teammates. She also has added a 3-point shot to her offensive arsenal. Wilson — and Stewart — are the new faces of Team USA in a changing-of-the-guard era, a new challenge for both. Wilson, 27, has handled that same responsibility on and off the court for the Aces, and she appears primed for the occasion.

Jackie Young, G

Young, 26, was a member of the Tokyo 3×3 squad. She was called into preparation at the last minute after initial 3×3 team member Katie Lou Samuelson tested positive for COVID-19 before the team’s departure. Young has been one of the most improved players through the most recent Olympic cycle, becoming a more prolific scorer and passer. She’s a tough perimeter defender and reliable scorer who, like the other guards on this roster, could find herself filling Gray’s shoes when she’s not on the floor.

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(Photo of Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, A’Ja Wilson and Sabrina Ionescu celebrating their gold-medal win at the 2022 FIBA World Cup: Kelly Defina / Getty Images)

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Culture

I Think This Poem Is Kind of Into You

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18 hours ago

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December 11, 2025

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I Think This Poem Is Kind of Into You

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By A.O. Scott

A.O. Scott, a critic at large for the Book Review, recorded the poem that appears in this piece.

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A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.

The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.

And then it bursts into flame.

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“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.

Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.

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We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.

To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.

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Louise Glück in 1975.

Gerard Malanga

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But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”

That’s the kind of poem she wrote.

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“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.

Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.

What happens next? That’s up to you.

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Culture

Can You Identify Where the Winter Scenes in These Novels Took Place?

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3 days ago

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December 9, 2025

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Can You Identify Where the Winter Scenes in These Novels Took Place?

Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.

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Culture

From NYT’s 10 Best Books of 2025: A.O. Scott on Kiran Desai’s New Novel

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1 week ago

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December 2, 2025

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From NYT’s 10 Best Books of 2025: A.O. Scott on Kiran Desai’s New Novel

Inge Morath/Magnum Photos

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When a writer is praised for having a sense of place, it usually means one specific place — a postage stamp of familiar ground rendered in loving, knowing detail. But Kiran Desai, in her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” has a sense of places.

This 670-page book, about the star-crossed lovers of the title and several dozen of their friends, relatives, exes and servants (there’s a chart in the front to help you keep track), does anything but stay put. If “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” were an old-fashioned steamer trunk, it would be papered with shipping labels: from Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj), Goa and Delhi; from Queens, Kansas and Vermont; from Mexico City and, perhaps most delightfully, from Venice.

There, in Marco Polo’s hometown, the titular travelers alight for two chapters, enduring one of several crises in their passionate, complicated, on-again, off-again relationship. One of Venice’s nicknames is La Serenissima — “the most serene” — but in Desai’s hands it’s the opposite: a gloriously hectic backdrop for Sonia and Sunny’s romantic confusion.

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Their first impressions fill a nearly page-long paragraph. Here’s how it begins.

Sonia is a (struggling) fiction writer. Sunny is a (struggling) journalist. It’s notable that, of the two of them, it is she who is better able to perceive the immediate reality of things, while he tends to read facts through screens of theory and ideology, finding sociological meaning in everyday occurrences. He isn’t exactly wrong, and Desai is hardly oblivious to the larger narratives that shape the fates of Sunny, Sonia and their families — including the economic and political changes affecting young Indians of their generation.

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But “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is about more than that. It’s a defense of the very idea of more, and thus a rebuke to the austerity that defines so much recent literary fiction. Many of Desai’s peers favor careful, restricted third-person narration, or else a measured, low-affect “I.” The bookstores are full of skinny novels about the emotional and psychological thinness of contemporary life. This book is an antidote: thick, sloppy, fleshy, all over the place.

It also takes exception to the postmodern dogma that we only know reality through representations of it, through pre-existing concepts of the kind to which intellectuals like Sunny are attached. The point of fiction is to assert that the world is true, and to remind us that it is vast, strange and astonishing.

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See the full list of the 10 Best Books of 2025 here.

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