Caitlin Clark's exclusion from Olympic roster was for basketball reasons; USAB executive explains the process
USA Basketball's Jen Rizzotti explained the process, emphasis on the criteria and how growing the game wasn't part of the discussion.
USA Basketball officially announced the women’s national team roster for the Paris Olympics on Tuesday, then I was on a Zoom call as committee chair Jen Rizzotti and team director Briana Weiss spoke with reporters to explain the process.
As much as they wanted to make it about the 12 players selected — each tremendous talents, to be clear — the call was more about who was not on the team.
The selection committee included: Rizzotti, Dawn Staley (South Carolina), Bethany Donaphin (WNBA), Dan Padover (Atlanta Dream), Seimone Augustus and DeLisha Milton-Jones.
Rizzotti emphasized how they followed a strict criteria, kept it about basketball and the fit of the group, especially in consideration for the lack of preparation time together.
“The depth of talent in the United States is probably the deepest it's ever been,” she said. “I think we want to be cognizant of all factors that go into this, but the decision for this specific roster came down to experience being imperative based on our prep time, based on the level of competition that we're we know that we're facing.”
The women’s national team has won seven straight Olympics gold medals, going back to 1996 in Atlanta.
The first question was about the status of Chelsea Gray, the Las Vegas Aces guard who has not played since they won a second consecutive championship. She suffered a left foot injury during the finals on Oct. 15.
“We've been in contact with Chelsea and the Aces organization and Chelsea's representatives, and we feel confident that Chelsea will be able to compete in Paris as one of arguably probably the best point guard in the world and somebody with extensive USA basketball experience,” Rizzotti said.
As part of that, they made clear that the roster must be finalized on July 26, two days before the start of the women’s basketball competition. Weiss added that they do not anticipate any alternates traveling to Paris.
It didn’t take long for the elephant in the room to come up. Caitlin Clark — the all-time leading scorer in men’s and women’s college basketball, a 22-year-old who has been part of Team USA before and is now helping take the WNBA to new heights — was not included in the final 12.
“Obviously, I want today to mostly be on the players that made the team but there's no avoiding the conversation around who didn't so I'm happy to address it,” said Rizzotti. And like it or not, Clark will continue to be talked about whether she’s an injury replacement or not.
You can watch the key moments from the press conference in the video below.