2022 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup qualifiers: Mike Thibault named court coach for Team USA’s training camp

On Wednesday, USA Basketball announced that Washington Mystics general manager and head coach Mike Thibault was named a court coach for the women’s national team when it hosts training camp from Feb. 5-9 in Washington. Team USA will play two games at the Entertainment and Sports Arena on Feb. 11 against Belgium and Feb. 12 against Puerto Rico in the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup Qualifiers. Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve is the head coach of the American women’s national team.

In a press release by USA Basketball, Thibault said the following:

“I’m excited to return to USA Basketball, because I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with USA Basketball on both the women’s and men’s side. Any chance you get to represent your country on an international level, which is an exciting level of basketball, there’s a lot of pride in that. My experiences with USA Basketball have been unbelievably rewarding, especially with the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been.

The opportunity to coach the highest level of women’s basketball has allowed me to coach players that I’ve respected as competitors and now get to be one of their coaches on the court. That’s always rewarding. We’re talking about the best of the best in women’s basketball. My past experiences with the national team will help this time around and coaching against some of our (WNBA) players and (international) competitors will be exciting.”

Thibault last served as an assistant coach with the USA Basketball women’s national team in 2008 for the Olympics. He was also the head coach of the USA Basketball men’s national team when they won the 1993 FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournament and a silver medal in the 1995 Pan American Games.