United States crushes Senegal to open women’s hoops play

The Americans, after winning six games by 38 points, trailed at halftime against Australia in the semifinals, its first halftime deficit since 2000.

“Weapons. We’re full of weapons”. The main thing we wanna focus on is making sure that we know what we want to do as a team because when we execute our game plan it’s not as important what the other team does as long as we know what we wanna do on our end.

For the host nation in Brazil, they were trounced by a unsafe Australian team and will now be looking to get things back on track, which is what a win over Japan would most certainly do for their squad.

The victory was the 43rd consecutive for the USA (2-0) in the Olympics. The Americans are trying to win a sixth consecutive gold medal.

The five-time defending gold medalist US women’s basketball team opened play at the Rio Games with a 121-56 blowout of Senegal in record-setting fashion.

Senegal’s Aya Traore wasn’t as enthused about the USA dominance. Delle Donne added 11. The Spaniards couldn’t get within single digits the rest of the way.

“When you got someone that’s unique like that and has something not many people have, you have to figure out how to use it to your advantage”, USA coach Geno Auriemma said of Griner’s size and shot blocking ability. “It’s fun to watch”. She finished with nine points. “For as little time as we had together, we do a lot of really nice things out there which is nice to see”.

The Americans will play against Senegal in Group B play. Griner had 14 points, seven rebounds and two blocks. While the defense was sound, they played ugly offense and missed wide-open shot after wide-open shot. “Anything that we can get from today is positive”.

Bird ensured there would be some tough lessons Spain could take away.

Playing in her fourth Olympics, Bird started the second half with a steal and then raced down the court for the layup. In Sunday’s win over Senegal, the crowd was behind the underdogs shouting down any American cheers. This time they wouldn’t be drowned out.

The trend continued in the fourth quarter, which saw the United States of America outscore Spain 29-12 to secure the 103-63 win.

Playing in front of a small, sleepy crowd at the Youth Arena, the USA took a few moments to shake off the cobwebs but quickly turned on the style as they sped to a commanding 54-37 halftime lead.

The U.S. next plays Serbia on Wednesday while Spain faces China.

While the U.S. had balanced scoring in the second period, including points from eight different players – led by six points from Angel McCoughtry (Atlanta Dream), Spain made three 3-pointers in the quarter and had a total of nine offensive boards by halftime to keep the United States of America from putting the game any further out of reach.