As a kid, Caitlin Clark’s favorite Olympic basketball players were Maya Moore, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.
Angel Reese remembers her grandmother turning on the TV for U.S. women’s national team games and getting to watch her idol, Seimone Augustus.
Paige Bueckers points to Bird and Taurasi, too, but also to a more recent USA Basketball moment.
“When Steph (Curry) went crazy,” at the 2024 Paris Games, she said, “that was like a heavenly experience of watching basketball.”
Now Clark, Reese and Bueckers — part of a new core that Bueckers deemed “young and turnt” — are in the spotlight.
All three are on the 12-woman U.S. roster for a FIBA World Cup qualifying tournament starting Wednesday in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Though the U.S. already qualified for September’s World Cup in Germany, the team is taking the opportunity to get competitive games in now.
The Americans get Senegal on Wednesday, Puerto Rico on Thursday, Italy on Saturday, New Zealand on Sunday and Spain next Tuesday.
Clark and Bueckers will make their senior national team debuts. Reese previously played at the 2023 AmeriCup, though that was an all-collegian team. All three were in the high school graduating class of 2020.
“Our young core has been really great,” Reese said, “and we haven’t been able to play with each other ever.”
Clark said a goal is to make her first Olympic team in 2028. She’s certainly familiar with the Games — her phone background image as recently as April 2024 was a famous photo from the 2016 Rio Olympics of South African swimmer Chad le Clos helplessly looking at Michael Phelps during the 200m butterfly final that Phelps won.
Game recognizes game.
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) April 4, 2024
Caitlin Clark’s phone background is a photo of Michael Phelps and the GOAT approves. 🐐 (via @MarchMadnessWBB) pic.twitter.com/50W2EQDaRc
Last Saturday, Clark shared what she called “one of my best memories as a young basketball player.”
As a teenager, she was at the USA Basketball base of Colorado Springs to play on a junior national team.
“We got to see this room where they kept jerseys of all their best players, or a jersey from each player maybe, I can’t remember the exact specifics,” she said. “But they had jerseys dating back years and years and years. And I remember as a kid, my eyes were just so wide. I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. All these senior national team jerseys of all these really great men’s players and all these really great women’s players. We’re 15 and 16 years old, and obviously having dreams of being able to do that one day.”
For the Olympics and World Cup, USA Basketball players wear a number between 4 and 15. So each jersey number can be traced to past Olympians, which players are reminded of through bag tags.
Clark will wear No. 12 this week, which was Taurasi’s number at the last six Olympics.
Bueckers has No. 4, which another legendary guard, Teresa Edwards, wore at her five Olympics from 1984 through 2000.
Reese is the most famous U.S. jersey number of all.
“Obviously 2028 is far, a long way, but just being able to have this moment right now, I think it’s really important,” Reese said. “I’m really going to enjoy it with each other.”
