2020 Olympics: USA Basketball wins women’s 3x3 Gold Medal

On Wednesday, the USA Basketball women's national 3x3 team won the Gold Medal after defeating the Russian Olympic Committee, 18-15. China won the bronze medal match, 16-14 against France.

It gets better for Washington Mystics fans, because 2014 first round pick Stefanie Dolson scored 7 points (remember, points are scored differently in 3x3 than traditional basketball) and grabbed 9 rebounds in the championship. In addition, the coach and advisor of Team USA is none other than Duke women’s basketball head coach Kara Lawson, who played in 2014 and 15 with Dolson! She would also go on to be the Wizards’ color analyst for two seasons.

Dolson finished with 51 points in 9 games for Team USA. Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum led all scorers with 55 points for the tournament. Dallas Wings forward Allisha Gray (48 points) and Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Young (18 points) rounded out the rest of the roster.

Team USA finished 8-1 in 3x3, with their only loss coming to Japan in group play.

Here are the scores from the men’s 3x3 tournament and the women’s tournament from yesterday. I’ll have a separate post on the men’s tournament games this evening.

• Latvia wins Gold in men’s 3x3 — Davis Bertans wasn’t needed in their win against the Russian Olympic Committee in the final, which they won, 21-18. In the bronze match, Serbia beat Belgium, 21-10. Belgium in particular was the lowest seed entering the 3x3 tournament, in part since they qualified for the Olympics in a special tournament AFTER the initial qualifiers in Austria. They also beat Latvia in their first match in group play. But unfortunately, the 3x3 Lions were outscored 42-18 in their semifinals and bronze medal matches.
• China beats Puerto Rico, 97-55 in women’s basketball — Yueru Li scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for the Chinese who never trailed in this game. For the Puerto Ricans, Pamela Rosado scored 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting but their team shot just 27.6 percent overall.