2024 Olympics Group B Preview
Breaking down each of the four teams in Group B of the women's basketball tournament at the Paris Olympics
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The Olympics represent the biggest stage for international competition in women’s basketball, and this year’s games seem poised to be extremely competitive. Eleven of the twelve national teams from the field in Tokyo return to Paris, with the only change to the field being Germany replacing Korea, and 11 of the 12 teams feature at least one player with WNBA experience. Cross-continental parity is also at a relative high point, with all four semifinalists at the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup coming from outside Europe for the first time at a global tournament since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
This is the second of three previews analyzing each group, which will be followed by an overall prediction article. Each group preview will discuss all four of its competitors in detail, listed in the order of the teams’ seeds from the draw. Note that hyperlinks on players’ names are connected to player pages on our stats site, Her Hoop Stats. Our previous article breaking down Group A can be found here. The games will start on Sunday, July 28, with certain games being televised on the NBC family of networks and all of them being available on Peacock.
Without further ado, here is our breakdown of Group B.
Australia
Australia has long been one of the global powerhouses in women’s basketball, winning five Olympic medals and six World Cup medals since 1996. Like Canada and the USA, Australia is also a team whose players tend to prioritize WNBA commitments over continental championships, meaning that those championships frequently tend to be less enlightening for projecting Olympic performance than for other peer nations. In fact, Australia’s roster contains seven current WNBA players, four former WNBA players, and one newly minted second-round draft pick in Isobel Borlase, rendering last year’s bronze medal finish at the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup nearly meaningless.
Australia has built much of its identity around the consistent deployment of skilled size. When healthy at the 2022 World Cup, Australia would start two traditional post players and then use Stephanie Talbot and Rebecca Allen on the wing, both of whom have spent significant minutes at the power forward position this WNBA season. Talbot also took on massive playmaking responsibilities, as she tends to do when playing in the Australian WNBL, pacing the team with 5.3 assists per game at that tournament. As long as Talbot’s injury suffered earlier this month with the Los Angeles Sparks is not serious, it seems reasonable to expect this pattern to continue. At the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Brazil this past February, Talbot was absent, still recovering from the ACL injury that held her out of the 2023 WNBA season, and Alanna Smith started the first two games at small forward, further indication of Australia’s predilections. Said predilections include Smith’s tendency to get marginalized from the rotation even as her WNBA stock has skyrocketed, as she ultimately ranked 10th on the team in minutes at that tournament despite receiving those unconventional starting assignments.
Part of why Talbot took on so much of the playmaking load is Australia’s lack of traditional floor general point guards. This year is no exception with the team likely starting Sami Whitcomb at the 1. Whitcomb has certainly played her fair share of point guard at every level and especially in overseas club competition, but her best skill has always been the depth of the range on her 3-point shot off the catch. Even this year in the Australian WNBL, she generally played shooting guard to start games next to Stephanie Reid, a former University of Buffalo point guard who was on Australia’s roster for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament but not for the Olympics. The team’s most traditional point guard is Jade Melbourne, currently the youngest player in the WNBA and building her resumé as Washington’s backup point guard amid Brittney Sykes’s prolonged injuries. Kristy Wallace and Tess Madgen will also serve as smaller wings who can handle a considerable proportion of the ball-handling duties as long as they do not have to do everything themselves. To that end, the 5.2 assists per 40 minutes that Madgen averaged in an injury-restricted Australian WNBL season this year and the 6.6 assists per 40 minutes that Wallace averaged in the Australian WNBL in 2022-23, her last fully healthy season in that league, are noteworthy.
That signifier of “skilled” extends beyond the ball-handling abilities of Australia’s big wings. Center Marianna Tolo is the only one of the team’s five post players - and the only player on the roster overall - who does not shoot 3-pointers at least occasionally. Furthermore, Smith is the shortest of those post players, and even she has spent considerable amounts of her current WNBA season with the Minnesota Lynx starting at center next to Napheesa Collier. Meanwhile, Cayla George’s 3-point accuracy may lag behind her reputation as a stretch post player, and there are valid concerns about how much of her scoring inside the arc consists of high post and mid-post jumpers. However, she also averaged an impressive 4.8 assists per 40 minutes with a 1.72 assist-to-turnover ratio in the most recent Australian WNBL season.
Australia brings one of the oldest teams to the tournament to Paris, leading the field with seven players aged 30 or older and thethe tournament’s oldest player in 43 year-old Lauren Jackson. This means that Australia has ample international experience, as the team’s roster has been staggeringly consistent in recent years, but it also makes it vulnerable to players’ declines. Australia’s upside therefore likely hinges on Ezi Magbegor, the quickest, most defensively talented of those skilled centers. Magbegor has been one of the biggest rising stars in the WNBA in recent years as a serious Defensive Player of the Year candidate with talent as a scorer. In an Australia uniform, she has put together consistently good performances but has yet to record an outright superstar tournament. However, one statistical category from the Olympic Qualifying Tournament might portend how Magbegor could make a devastating impact on the game - 3.0 blocks per game, with 4-block performances against both Brazil and Serbia.
X-Factor: Lauren Jackson
Once upon a time, Jackson was a WNBA superstar, leading championship teams alongside Sue Bird and staking a claim as one of the greatest players in league history. Jackson last played in the WNBA in 2012, forced into an early retirement by an extensive list of injuries. That retirement lasted six years before she came back to play for her hometown team in the NBL1, a semi-professional league in Australia, ultimately making Australia’s World Cup team later that year. Then, in the following Australian WNBL professional season, she tore her Achilles tendon, yet she returned to the court for the past WNBL season. After playing in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in February, she initially announced that she would not be joining the team for the Olympics, but she ultimately made the roster once again. However, this remarkable comeback(s) story is not why the 43 year-old is Australia’s X-factor. Indeed, Jackson still can swing critical games with vintage offensive explosions. At the 2022 World Cup, she helped Australia secure the bronze medal with 30 points and 7 rebounds in a mere 21 minutes against Canada. More recently, Jackson averaged 19.5 points per game in this year’s WNBL playoffs, most notably detonating with 38 points and 11 rebounds in a winner-take-all Game 3 of the semifinals. Jackson might just have one or two more classic performances left in her, and that could swing a game in Australia’s favor.
WNBA-Specific Interest
Australia is at its youngest at the backup guard positions. Melbourne, who has improved massively in a key bench role for the Washington Mystics, stands out as the team’s most traditional floor general and seems primed to receive important minutes behind Whitcomb. Furthermore, Borlase will be playing in her first major tournament and be exposed to a large North American audience for the first time. Borlase stands out as a strong slashing wing who excels in transition and possesses solid passing ability. (Read our pre-draft scouting report on Borlase here.) There will also be intrigue in seeing Wallace play a role for Australia after missing almost the entirety of the last Australian WNBL season and then falling in and out of the Indiana Fever’s rotation this WNBA season. Finally, analyzing Smith’s role, where she will presumably spend a majority of her time on the court at the power forward position, will help elucidate how much of her breakout WNBA season is the product of sliding to the center position and playing in an optimized role.
Who’s Not Here: Former WNBA point guard and two-time Most Improved Player Leilani Mitchell continues to play professionally in Australia, most recently winning a WNBL Championship this past season, but she has been firmly supplanted by Whitcomb as the team’s naturalized player and starting point guard. No. 12 overall 2024 WNBA Draft selection Nyadiew Puoch was not even in the 26-player preliminary roster, presumably because the long, active forward remains a fairly raw prospect. Defense-first guard Katie-Rae Ebzery led Australia in minutes at the Tokyo Olympics but retired from basketball following those Games. Forward Sara Blicavs, who has established a consistent bench role for herself in recent tournaments, is out with an injury.
Canada
Like many other teams at this tournament, Canada has built its reputation with its physicality. Canada frequently ranks near the top in free-throw attempts and closer to the bottom in 3-point attempts, and it surrendered only 60.2 points per game during the group stage while playing in the more balanced pool at the 2022 World Cup. Unlike several of those other teams, Canada’s talent pool and consistent roster construction have not left it much alternative. Canada has not featured a post player with legitimate range beyond the 3-point line at a global tournament since Michelle Plouffe held down a bench role at the 2018 World Cup, but that is far from saying that it has an untalented set of players at those positions. Starting with the veterans, Kayla Alexander and Natalie Achonwa were both first-round WNBA Draft picks whose careers in that league appear likely over but which both lasted a significant stretch of time. Alexander brings exceptional value as a rebounder and rim protector, while Achonwa has noteworthy skill as a high-post passer. Then, Canada has a new generation of WNBA first-round picks in Aaliyah Edwards and Laeticia Amihere actively working to prove themselves at the highest level. Edwards has established herself more at the start of her WNBA career, but Amihere’s length, athleticism, and flashes of ball skills grant her tantalizing potential. Depending on how the exact lineups shake out - Canada only puts out its top-tier roster for global tournaments because of WNBA and NCAA commitments, and Edwards did not make the 2022 World Cup roster - the former WNBA players may well start over the current ones.
On the perimeter, Canada relies heavily on two WNBA wings, Kia Nurse and Bridget Carleton. Both are generally at their best as off-ball shooters, but both players have often been asked to stretch themselves as creators for Canada, Nurse in particular. In fact, at the 2018 World Cup, Nurse averaged twice as many points per game as any of her teammates. Both players have put together absolutely sterling performances, but both have also had struggles creating efficient shots inside the arc. This is not helped by the fact that Canada’s two main guards, Nirra Fields and Shay Colley, have had solid tournaments shooting 3-pointers in the past but are not shooters first and foremost. Fields is more of a shotmaker than a shooter, and Colley’s best shooting performances have generally been on the short samples of international tournaments where she still graded out as barely above-average. This came to a head at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Hungary in February, which Nurse missed because of an injury. Canada only shot 8-for-36 (22.2%) from 3-point range, constituting a paltry 12.0 such attempts per game, and the team also only shot 40.1% inside the arc. Only Carleton, Fields, and Colley made any 3-pointers at that tournament.
At the last global tournament, Canada qualified for the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup, at which point it was bludgeoned 83-43 by the USA and then 96-65 by Australia in the bronze medal match. It is possible that format peculiarities facilitated this achievement - top-two finishers in each group could be drawn against either the third-placed or fourth-placed finisher in the other group of six, and second-place Canada was allotted fourth-place Puerto Rico rather than a much tougher third-place Belgium. That being said, Canada has clear room for growth, featuring five players aged 23 or younger on its roster. Edwards in particular could break out and push Canada’s ceiling in a major way.
X-Factor: Bridget Carleton
It may seem a bit phony to call someone with such a strong claim to being a team’s best player its “X-factor,” but there has often been a mismatch between Carleton’s best skills and what she has been asked to do for Canada. Carleton has typically played in a fairly strict 3-and-D capacity in the WNBA, and she is currently on track to rank above the 10th percentile in usage rate for the first time in her career. Meanwhile, as talented as Canada’s guards are, Carleton is often asked to take on more of a creative role while wearing her national team’s jersey. This reached its nadir at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in February when Nurse was injured and Carleton averaged 14.0 points per game but only put together a 33.3% effective field-goal percentage, relying on free-throw attempts to keep her efficiency even in the neighborhood of respectable. Nurse returning to the lineup should help matters by reintroducing another shooter and creator, but Canada continues to rely on post players who do most of their offensive work from the elbows in, so the offensive environment may not be radically different. That being said, Carleton is having the best shooting season of her WNBA career, shooting 43.5% from 3-point range on a career-high 7.1 3-point attempts per 40 minutes, and a very similar sentence could be written about the season she just completed overseas in the Hungarian league and EuroLeague Women. Carleton being able to get easy shots could boost Canada’s ceiling, while overtaxing her may force Canada to rely on its defense once again to reach its goals.
WNBA-Specific Interest
When Amihere was drafted No. 8 overall in 2023 out of South Carolina, her talent was evident, but it was widely accepted that she was a raw project who would take some time. In the season-and-a-half since, Amihere has only played 201 minutes of WNBA action, without suffering a major injury, and she did not play overseas or in Athletes Unlimited during the WNBA offseason. In the meantime, she has maintained a spot in Canada’s rotation, so the Olympics should serve as an opportunity for the general public - and other WNBA teams - to observe the improvement she has made as a professional. Meanwhile, Edwards narrowly led the team in minutes at last year’s AmeriCup when Achonwa was absent but remained with UConn during Canada’s Olympic qualifying run. She has shown promising strides with the Washington Mystics so far this season, and it will be encouraging to see that growth on the international stage. Of particular interest will be where her scoring efficiency lands, as she only shot 42.4% from the field in that AmeriCup but has been much better so far in her rookie WNBA season, shooting 49.0% to date. There are also several upcoming WNBA Draft prospects on Canada’s roster: this year’s Becky Hammon Award winner Yvonne Ejim from Gonzaga; Notre Dame small forward and defensive specialist Cassandre Prosper; and wing phenom Syla Swords, who will be attending Michigan in the fall. (Read our article enshrining Ejim as the Becky Hammon Award winner here.) Prosper and Swords are notable for their potential to break some of Canada’s relatively rigid, traditional mold, with the former having the size and length to play as a perimeter-based four and Swords having the shooting ability to inject an added dose of floor spacing when one of Nurse or Carleton has to rest and the other has to absorb a heavier creation burden. At the other end of the age spectrum, former WNBA players Alexander and Achonwa continue to hold down important roles. In particular, Alexander continues to play at a high level in Europe, including returning to play in EuroLeague Women next season, and is penciled in as the starting center.
Who’s Not Here: Slashing forward Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe has retired following a career that took her from Simon Fraser University to the WNBA and EuroLeague Women. Rim attacker Shaina Pellington and shooting specialist Aislinn Konig are recent NCAA point guards of some repute who have found themselves on various Canada rosters but never fully entrenched themselves and have been left off this roster. In the post, 6-foot-8 Phillipina Kyei has not been able to establish a consistent role either and finds herself on the outside looking in. NCAA and WNBA fans may remember former Oregon State rim protecting center Ruth Davis (née Hamblin), but while she continues to play professionally overseas, she has not joined Canada for a tournament since 2019.
France
Expectations are high for France as one of Europe’s basketball powerhouses competing on its home territory. France took a step backward in its most recent international tournament, snapping a streak of five consecutive silver medal EuroBasket Women finishes…by winning bronze instead. France has two stars the likes of whom few teams can match in Gabby Williams and Marine Johannès. Williams’s much remarked-upon difficulties as an outside shooter are less of a problem when she can orchestrate significant portions of the offense herself, and she did manage to squeak out a 33.8% mark from long range in a limited, injury-shortened sample this past season in the French league and EuroLeague Women. What that means is that Williams can dominate games with her playmaking and lockdown defense. And while Johannès’s flashy passing and one-legged 3-point jumpers may make highlight reels, her most game-breaking strength is her ability to fly off screens and let outside shots rip with neither breathing room nor hesitation.
However, it would be a grave mistake to overlook France’s superb depth. After all, it is coming off a third-place performance at EuroBasket Women 2023 where not a single player averaged more than 23 minutes per game on a route that was paved with only one blowout and no shortage of quality opponents. Among other considerations, this depth helps France weather the storms when Johannès - or anyone else for that matter - goes on a cold streak, as is wont to happen. In fact, that performance came as the result of weathering the ultimate cold streak as both Williams and Johannès were absent from the roster, the former due to injury and the latter due to conflict arising from her desire to spend any time pre-tournament with the New York Liberty against a recently instituted team policy.
Over the course of the last few years, France has gradually shifted in a quicker, more spaced-out direction. The phrase “power forward Valériane Ayayi" represents the biggest component of this sea change. Ayayi (briefly Vukosavlejvić) has spent most of her career deployed fairly strictly as a 3 but recently has been used consistently at both forward spots, and this has carried over to the national team. This is especially important because Ayayi can attack closeouts and get all of the way to the rim while shooting well enough to command said closeouts consistently and passing well enough to keep the offensive wheels greased. In the post, gone for some time are the days of 6-foot-5 centers splitting time for 95% or more of games. Indeed, the post rotation includes four traditional post players, but two of them - Iliana Rupert and Alexia Chery (née Chartereau) - do their best offensive work as outside shooters. Furthermore, Marième Badiane, who may very well end up the first-choice center, is a 6-foot-3 speedster whose best skill is rolling to the basket. Besides the players already mentioned, France features two premier 3-and-D-and-more players at opposite ends of the age spectrum. Sarah Michel-Boury, 35 years old and on the verge of her third Olympics, sports quick hands and an incredible knack for passing, averaging superb marks of 8.6 assists and 4.1 steals per 40 minutes in the French league and EuroCup Women this season despite being impossible to mistake for a point guard. On the other hand, Janelle Salaun, aged 22, is more of a shooter and shotmaker known for her switchability at the other end of the court. Where France might have more questions is at the point guard spot, but Romane Bernies is a steady veteran while Marine Fauthoux and Leïla Lacan are young and brimming with unmistakable potential. Furthermore, the spacing principles and the return of Williams should alleviate some of the burden on this more uncertain position.
While the EuroBasket Women performance may have been disappointing, competition since has included routs of quality opponents in Latvia in EuroBasket Women 2025 qualifying - again without Williams or Johannès - and an 82-50 drubbing of China at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament. France’s Olympic preparation slate has not been as dense as other countries’ but also includes a 22-point win over Serbia and a 13-point victory over a previously undefeated Japan (with the necessary caveat that most of Japan’s previous opponents had been shorthanded). Between those results and its homecourt advantage, the only foolhardy place to set expectations would be to call them gold medal favorites.
X-Factor: Marine Fauthoux
Fauthoux has been a rising star in Europe for some time now, generating excitement for her ability to create for herself and others with panache. However, her 2021-22 season when she shot 39.5% from 3-point range in the French League, EuroLeague Women, and EuroCup Women appears to be an aberration, and her overall efficiency has tanked as a result. This has included a massive cold spell during last year’s EuroBasket Women when she shot a dismal 2-for-16 (12.5%) from beyond the arc. Similarly, her assist-to-turnover ratio generally has not been as high as one might hope from a starting point guard. For the national team, these factors all fused at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, where she played only 12 minutes in the opening game against Puerto Rico and then came off the bench against China. Additionally, Fauthoux suffered a back injury in that China match that ultimately ended her club season early, although she has recovered for the preparation games. An added wrinkle is that Williams and Johannès, both of whom missed EuroBasket Women, are back to assume more of the playmaking burden. Both were also Fauthoux’s teammates for this past club season, but both also had extended injuries while she was still healthy. Fauthoux should have plenty of opportunities to break out at this Olympics, and France may need her to do just that in order to return to the medal podium.
WNBA-Specific Interest
Dominique Malonga is an athletic 6-foot-5 center who is eligible for the 2025 WNBA Draft. Only 18 years old, she stands out as the team’s only traditional post player on a France team that is generally much smaller than in years past. As a result, she might be able to carve out a significant bench role, especially in a group where Australia and Canada seem poised to play big consistently. Similarly, there seems to be room clearly laid out in the roster construction for 2024 No. 10 overall WNBA Draft selection Lacan to occupy a spot in the rotation. Played mostly as a shooting guard at last year’s EuroBasket Women and absent from the roster at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, Lacan appears to be designated as France’s third point guard, especially on a roster where the returning Williams can help shoulder some of the primary ball-handling responsibility. (Read our pre-draft scouting report on Lacan here.) After being drafted in the third round of the 2021 WNBA Draft, Fauthoux’s WNBA rights remain held by the New York Liberty, and she retains value as a prospect assuming that her efficiency numbers can eventually improve.
Of course, the young prospects are not the only enticing players here from a WNBA perspective. Even more so than China in the previous group, any player who receives even rotation-level minutes for France should merit some consideration, especially on the wing. Leaving aside Williams and Johannès, whose WNBA reputations are well-known, Salaun and Ayayi both profile as versatile, athletic forwards who shoot effectively from the perimeter and can put on the ball on the deck and attack, a skillset which is heavily valued in the modern game. In particular, the 6-foot-1 Ayayi’s ability to slide to the power forward position for both club and country aligns exceptionally well with modern spacing principles. Ayayi also has previous WNBA experience, having spent the 2015 season with the San Antonio Silver Stars. In the post, Rupert remains under contract with the Atlanta Dream for next year as a stretch 4/5, and Chery fits a similar archetype, albeit with less experience at the center position.
Who’s Not Here: Two starters from the medal round games at last year’s EuroBasket Women have not been included in France’s Olympic roster. Center Sandrine Gruda, a master high-post scorer and a legend of the French national team and EuroLeague Women, was not even included in the 18-player preliminary roster after an injury-plagued season in France. Combo wing Mamignan Toure, a do-it-all wing with particular talent as a slasher, was a later cut. Neither Gruda nor Toure participated in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament either. Alix Duchet, a starter from the key matchup with China who was absent for EuroBasket Women will again be absent after withdrawing from consideration for personal reasons. Examining the roster from a more WNBA-centric perspective, recent first-round draft picks Maïa Hirsch and Carla Leite are also off the roster. Hirsch has not played since suffering an injury in December while Leite was involved in the training camp process but was ultimately cut. Furthermore, point guard Olivia Epoupa and wing Lou Lopez Sénéchal prioritized the WNBA season over the chance of making the Olympic team, however remote those possibilities might have been based on recent selection precedent.
Nigeria
The last time there was a global tournament, Nigeria qualified for the 2022 World Cup but were withdrawn from the tournament by its national government. What was originally supposed to be a two-year suspension from international competition was quickly shortened, but not in time to avoid being replaced at that global tournament by Mali. Perhaps as a result, several key players went on hiatuses from the national team. Not all of them have ended said hiatuses, but the two most important, its star point guards, are back. Promise Amukamara came back for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgium in February, while Ezinne Kalu has returned to the Nigeria squad for the first time in the run-up to Paris.
At no point in this run have the results stopped coming - Nigeria’s streak of four consecutive Women’s AfroBasket crowns continues unblemished - and the selection shakeup has facilitated a potentially fruitful reconfiguration of the roster. The most obvious consequence has been the emergence of star forward Amy Okonkwo, who jumped from a bench role at the Tokyo Olympics to winning MVP at last year’s Women’s AfroBasket. The 6-foot-2 Okonkwo has a true inside-out offensive game, can score in bunches, and is a first option who can hold her own against most foes, notably scoring 16 points against host Belgium at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament. She has recently earned her first opportunity to prove her mettle at the EuroLeague Women level. Similarly, wing Elizabeth Balogun has been allowed time to grow from a bit player at those Olympics to a key contributor, starting all three games at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, and 6-foot guard Ifunaya Okoro has had the opportunity to flourish as a serious ball-handling threat.
When this generation of Nigeria basketball emerged on the world stage at the 2018 World Cup, shocking the world by reaching the quarterfinals, its team was built around its rebounding ability. At that tournament, Nigeria averaged a staggering 18.3 offensive rebounds per game - the next closest was Canada with 14.3 - and assigned a non-negligible amount of small forward minutes to faceup power forwards. Then at the Tokyo Olympics, Nigeria barely finished in the top half of the rankings in that category while again granting a non-negligible amount of small forward minutes to faceup power forwards. This particular Nigeria team seems far more likely to follow the latter example and may just take it even further. It may not seem like a headline story, but this is the first Nigeria team that has enough skillful perimeter players that it can employ legitimate small-ball lineups with Okonkwo at power forward. This may not lead to more shooting on its own because Nigeria has had post players who could shoot in the past, but it resembles a radical departure from the previous paradigm that such lineups are not only possible but actively incorporated.
That being said, one would be remiss to ignore this current cadre of Nigeria post players. The one interior holdover from that Olympic team is former Northwestern star Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah. The center in some of those small-ball lineups despite only being listed at 6-foot-2, Kunaiyi-Akpanah is a world-class rebounder who averaged a whopping 20.0 rebounds per 40 minutes during the 2022-23 Italian league season, a figure which dropped to a still-elite 13.7 rebounds per 40 minutes playing for a more balanced and talented team in the same league this past season. The new faces include Murjanatu Musa, who has made an impact on the Spanish league and was the team’s leading scorer in its Olympic Qualifying Tournament match against the USA, and former Texas and Notre Dame center Lauren Ebo, who possesses soft touch in the post which makes her a reliable offensive option.
This may not all translate to wins in Paris. No matter how critical the absence of Kalu may have been, a short-handed USA team still won 100-46. It also remains a fact that Nigeria needed a fourth-quarter comeback to squeeze past African rival Senegal to claim a spot at this tournament in the first place, and Nigeria will only play two preparation games prior to this tournament, the second of which takes place the day this article is published. However, Nigeria should surprise people stylistically, which on its own gives it a chance to surprise people competitively as well.
X-Factor: Tomi Taiwo
Tomi Taiwo is an X-factor less because of how much she may or may not play - even an optimistic prediction still renders her a bench player - and more because of the role she projects to occupy. Simply put, Taiwo is the best 3-point shooter Nigeria has had in recent memory. Nigeria has had good shooters before, and it has even had shooters who stand out as great relative to their position like Ify Ibekwe, but Taiwo is an outstanding shooter irrespective of position. In her last NCAA season, which she spent at TCU, Taiwo shot 38.6% from 3-point range on 8.6 3-point attempts per 40 minutes, a massive increase in volume after spending her other four NCAA seasons in a much smaller role at Iowa. At last summer’s FIBA Women’s AfroBasket, Taiwo shot 12-for-27 (44.4%) from 3-point range in 99 minutes of play, meaning that she was attempting a whopping 10.9 3-point attempts per 40 minutes. So far this WNBA season, only Sami Whitcomb averages that many attempts on a per-minute basis. However, after Amukamara returned at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgium, Taiwo’s role was reduced significantly, and she missed all four of her field-goal attempts in the 27 minutes she did play. Kalu’s return could leave her at the very end of the rotation, but her ability to score in bunches and space the floor reinforces the atypical strength of this Nigeria team’s perimeter cohort.
WNBA-Specific Interest
Okonkwo may not be quite athletic enough to translate her entire scoring package to the WNBA if given the opportunity, but some component of her shooting, driving, and posting up could translate and provide value to a team stateside. At the guard spots, Amukamara and Kalu are probably past the point of being relevant to a WNBA team, although there arguably was a window where that was not the case for one or both of them, and Amukamara at least carries some intrigue as a former third-round WNBA Draft pick.
Who’s Not Here: As previously alluded, Nigeria has overhauled its post rotation since the last Olympics. Notably, Ify Ibekwe, the most consistent outside shooter of that team’s post rotation, has retired from basketball, while Victoria Macaulay and Oderah Chidom continue to play overseas but have taken a step back from the national team, both of them last playing at the 2022 World Cup Qualifying Tournament - before Nigeria’s resignation debacle. On the wing, Adaora Elonu and Atonye Nyingifa, like Ibekwe, have retired from basketball.
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