USA, Aided by Aces Guards Plum and Young, Close the Weekend 3-0

It was another lopsided victory as the USA National Team (3-0) closed out the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Antwerp, Belgium, with a 101-39 victory over Senegal (0-3) on Sunday evening.

Rhyne Howard was one of two U.S. players who scored in double digits and paced all scorers with 25 points.

Kelsey Plum tallied 5 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists in 11 minutes; while Jackie Young had 3 points, 3 boards, 3 dimes, 1 steal and 1 blocked shot in 9 minutes.

Over the USA’s three games, Plum averaged 5.3 points and 4.7 assists in 17.3 minutes a game and Young had 6.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.4 minutes.

The USA earned its Olympic berth by virtue of claiming gold at the 2022 FIBA World Cup. Also qualifying for Paris out of the Antwerp tournament were Belgium (2-1) and Nigeria (1-2).

Qualifying out of Hungary were Japan (2-1), Spain (2-1) and Canada (1-2); and France (3-0), China (2-1) and Puerto Rico (1-2) emerged from the four-team group in China. On Saturday Australia (2-0) clinched its spot out of the final group, playing in Brazil, while the remaining two teams will be known following today’s  Australia versus Serbia (1-1) and Brazil (0-2) versus Germany (1-1) contests.