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USA women's national team vs. France preview and GameThread

By Elle Ward
Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images

The US Women's National team will take on France's National team this evening for a friendly in Delaware. Canada will also be scrimmaging Australia at 5:30 p.m. EST, as an appetizer.

Game Info

When: Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. EST.

Where: Bob Carpenter Center, University of Delaware.

TV: NBATV.

Injury Report

Team USA should be good to go.

Keys to the Game

As it stands in the world rankings system after the 2015 Continental Championships, Team USA has the number one spot in the world securely locked up. But this will be a decent test for the Americans, as the French National team is ranked fourth in the world, behind Australia and Spain.

While France does not have any current WNBA players on their roster, they do have a number of savvy veterans, namely Sandrine Gruda and Celine Dumerc, that can give anyone problems. They also have players that were drafted into the W, but did not stick with a team.

Gruda, in particular, knows Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner very well, having spent the first half of the 2016 Russian season on the UMMC squad that won a championship this year, but was replaced by Emma Meesseman when she sustained an injury and her contract was not renewed; she had been their go-to power forward for several seasons until then.

For me in particular, I am very interested to see Elena Delle Donne and Breanna Stewart on the floor together.  It was pretty clear from the scrimmage with the Select team that the National team is a bit long in the tooth, meaning, old. I am interested to see how much Coach Geno Auriemma injects youth into the line-up, and what kind of chemistry will develop between these two super-stars.

Team Australia takes on Team Canada

These two national teams will square-off at 5:30 p.m. EST, on NBATV as well.

The Australian National team has had several WNBA players, including, Erin Phillips (Dallas), Leilani Mitchell (Phx), Abby Bishop (Sea), and Stephanie Talbot who was selected in the third round by Phoenix, but did not stick.

The Canadian National team has a number of Dubbers as well, Natalie Achonwa (Ind), Adut Bulgak (NY), Ruth Hamblin (Dallas), and a current UConn alumna, Kia Nurse, round out a competitive Canadian team.

Australia is currently number two in the world, followed tightly by Spain. Canada is currently holding down the number nine spot in the world. So this should be another good test for both squads.

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Delaware native Elena Delle Donne got a huge shout out yesterday during the Democratic National Convention's state-by-state roll call. Nice to see the W getting some love!