USA Basketball Announced The 12 Players On The Women’s Olympic Roster For Tokyo

We are just weeks away from USA Basketball camps in Las Vegas for both the men’s and women’s teams, with the women’s squad getting tune ups against not only Nigeria and Australia, but also the WNBA All-Stars who don’t make Team USA.

The women will head to Tokyo looking for their record seventh straight gold medal, and will be the heavy favorites to do so given the immense amount of depth and talent on the roster. That 12-woman roster was finalized on Monday morning, with head coach Dawn Staley joining Today to announce the roster and break down how they landed on the 12 players they did.

Among the biggest cuts made was the Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike, who was on the 2018 FIBA World Cup winning team, was the MVP of the 2020 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament, and played extremely well during USA Basketball’s college tour in 2019-20. Her sister, Chiney, was not pleased with her exclusion, to say the least.

Ogwumike is currently injured with a timetable that should have her back playing before camp begins, which may have played a role but Taurasi — who is certainly in a different category as a legend — is similarly out currently with an injury. The omission of Ogwumike was the chief point of controversy regarding the roster, but with so many talented bigs, someone was getting left off that was going to stir up some serious questions.

Full Olympic Roster

Sue Bird
Diana Taurasi
Sylvia Fowles
Tina Charles
Brittney Griner
Breanna Stewart
Jewell Loyd
A’ja Wilson
Ariel Atkins
Chelsea Gray
Napheesa Collier
Skyler Diggins-Smith

There is a solid mixture of veteran talent who have been to past Olympics and will bring the requisite experience to the squad, along with some fresh faces in Atkins, Gray, Collier, and Diggins-Smith, who are each going to get their first taste of a major competition.