The U.S. Olympic women’s 3×3 team appeared to take another hit on back-to-back nights, as Atlanta Dream star Rhyne Howard left Wednesday night’s game against the Minnesota Lynx.
Howard, who was leading the team with 15.4 points per game, exited the game in the third quarter with a lower-leg injury
Atlanta head coach Tanisha Wright said Howard would be re-evaluated on Thursday. Howard is the second member of the U.S. Olympic women’s 3×3 team to go down in as many days. Los Angeles Sparks rookie Cameron Brink slipped on the court Tuesday night.
The Sparks announced earlier Wednesday that the Stanford rookie suffered a torn ACL. She is likely finished for the rest of the season and will definitely miss the Olympics.
Rhyne Howard, #10 of the Atlanta Dream, brings the ball up court during the game against the Minnesota Lynx on June 19, 2024 at Target Center in Minneapolis. (David Sherman/NBAE via Getty Images)
TCU guard Hailey Van Lath and former Tennessee standout Cierra Burdick are the only healthy players left on the roster. Stefanie Dolson, Alisha Gray, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum helped the U.S. win the gold medal in Tokyo.
Plum and Young are on the U.S. Olympic women’s 5-on-5 team.
FIBA, the world governing body of basketball, says to make the roster a squad has to have two players ranked within the top 10 of their country and two players in the top 50 of their country or have the minimum number of ranking points. To earn ranking points, players have to participate in 3×3 events
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I stopped watching the Olympics back when they started allowing professional athletes to participate. The Olympics were much more enjoyable when we were rooting for amateurs who worked extremely hard to earn and appreciate their spot on Team USA.
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The problem was the Eastern block countries had started using professionals as early as the 1960’s. The US was sending teens to compete against the steroid laced group of grown men and grown women. It was only fair for the US and other western countries to do the same minus the roads par…unfortunately, the Communist Block countries had ‘amateur’ athletes in name only that were actually professionals because that was all they did as the government picked up ALL of their life expense
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