The U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team was in unfamiliar territory after dropping two exhibition games in a row for the first time in a decade.
The Americans rebounded with a strong effort to beat Nigeria 93-62 on Sunday in the final pre-Olympic exhibition tuneup for both teams.
“It feels good,” U.S. coach Dawn Staley said. “To come out and play the way we did on both sides of the basketball. We shared it, got our bigs the ball. We made a concerted effort to do that. I think everyone in the locker room feels good about being able to impact the game in a lot of different ways.”
A’ja Wilson scored 16 points and Breanna Stewart added 14 to lead the U.S., which dropped consecutive exhibition games for the first time since 2011 with losses to the WNBA All-Stars and Australia this week.
“No one wants to be on the team that loses,” Wilson said. “I was a little like, ‘Uh-oh.’ People talk and jump the gun, say everything and anything. The vets were like, ‘It’s OK. It’s part of the game — we’ll get back.’ Coach came in today and said we’re getting back to our dominance and that helped me feel a little more at ease. The people we have in the locker room are so talented. We know what we were doing.”
