When the U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team was announced a few weeks ago, there was a lot of chatter about the absence of Caitlin Clark. Perhaps people should have looked harder at whose name was also missing from the roster. Although Arike Ogunbowale had removed herself from the pool being considered for the Olympic team, she clearly still wanted to show USA Basketball what it was missing. With a record-setting 34 points, all in the second half, Ogunbowale powered Team WNBA to a 117–109 win over Team USA at the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix.
Obviously, Ogunbowale was named MVP of the game. The same happened at the 2021 All-Star Game, which also served as a sendoff for the Olympic team. Ogunbowale has been an offensive powerhouse capable of unleashing a torrent of three-pointers since college—let us not forget the buzzer-beating shots that won University of Notre Dame the 2018 NCAA title. She had eight in this All-Star Game.
Clark and fellow rookie Angel Reese also played admirably and put to rest any speculation over tension between them. Clark set a rookie record of 10 assists, which was just one shy of Sue Bird’s all-time All-Star Game assist record of 11. Reese had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart had a double-double with 31 points and 10 rebounds. Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson had 22 points and six rebounds. It was an off night for the Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu, who went one-for-five on three-pointers.
Much ado was made about the lack of preparation time the Olympic team has before the 2024 Games. While this is true, there have been training camps over the past year. Also, keep in mind that seven members of the team played together at the last Olympics and eight of them played on the gold medal-winning 2022 World Cup team. That doesn’t mean winning an eighth consecutive gold medal will be easy, though.
The growth of the WNBA has fueled basketball globally. Stewart and Ionescu aren’t the only Liberty players headed to Paris. Nyara Sabally and Leonie Fiebich will be on Team Germany and Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello coaches Team Australia, which includes three-time WNBA MVP Lauren Jackson, 43, marking her first Olympic appearance since 2012.
Team USA opens Olympic play on Monday, July 29, versus Japan, a team that challenged them to the finish of the gold medal game at the Tokyo Olympics.