USA Women's National Team Defeats Connecticut 79-64 - WNBA.com - Official Site of the WNBA - PortlandFire.com

USA Basketball January 27, 2020

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Jan. 27, 2020) – Trailing by two points early in the fourth quarter, the USA Women’s National Team closed with a 25-8 run to defeat the University of Connecticut 79-64 in an exhibition game on Monday night at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

“Once we got past not starting all five UConn players and some media people mad at me, the game got off to a great start,” joked USA coach Cheryl Reeve (Minnesota Lynx). “(We played) exactly how we wanted to play, and I thought we had a great sense of urgency about us, great passion about what we were doing, got some easy stuff, played in transition. They didn’t make many shots, and then the second quarter was the exact opposite, shooting 21.0%.

“The third quarter, we came out with a really good focus on where we were going to be successful – we didn’t shoot a free throw in the first half, and we were determined to pound that thing inside and try to establish that, and I thought (Sylvia Fowles) was terrific.”

Sylvia Fowles (Minnesota Lynx/Louisiana State) led the USA with 19 points and six rebounds; Nneka Ogwumike (Los Angeles Sparks/Stanford) tallied 14 points, five rebounds and three assists; Kayla McBride (Las Vegas Aces/Notre Dame) added 12 points; and Tina Charles (New York Liberty/Connecticut), who was one of five UConn alumni on the USA roster, grabbed nine rebounds and had five assists and six points.

“We got stops and blew up some of their plays,” Fowles said of the USA in the fourth quarter. “Not letting them get 3s off. I think they got comfortable shooting 3s, and we shut that down in the fourth quarter.”

To pay tribute to Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, as well as the other seven people who tragically died on Jan. 26, the players wore a black band on their jerseys, the arena observed 24 seconds of silence before the game and the teams let an eight-second shot clock and 24-second shot clock expire on the first possessions.