BERLIN – The undefeated streak of the United States women’s national basketball team at the FIBA World Cup faced its closest test in 18 years on Sunday, when a gritty defensive performance from Italy pushed the defending champions to the brink before a late-game rally and a game-saving key stop secured a tense 55-53 win for the Americans.
Jackie Young led the U.S. scoring with 10 points in a match that saw the American offense struggle to find its rhythm from start to finish. This low-scoring victory marks the fewest points the U.S. has put up in a World Cup win since a 42-38 defeat of Australia back in 1967, highlighting just how tight the matchup against Italy truly was.
Entering the match, the U.S. held an unprecedented 31-game consecutive World Cup win streak, a run that stretches all the way back to a 2006 semifinal loss to Russia. Before Sunday’s game, only one opponent had pulled within single digits of the Americans during this historic run: Australia, who fell by eight points back in 2010. Italy’s performance made clear just how much the global gap with the U.S. has narrowed in recent years, a trend the American side acknowledged following the final buzzer.
“You have to be able to win different ways in this tournament because every team stylistically plays a little bit different,” said U.S. head coach Kara Lawson after the win. “You do have to be able to win when you don’t have your fastball. We didn’t have a fastball tonight, but we figured it out late and we’ll grow from it.”
Breanna Stewart, who missed her opening eight shots from the field before notching her first and most critical bucket of the game late in the fourth quarter, echoed that sentiment. “Obviously, Italy really kind of mucked up the game for us a little bit. It made it difficult for us to score. They are a tough team. Tons of respect to what they’ve done. And, just proud of the resiliency of this group.”
This narrow escape comes on the heels of another close call for the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the Americans claimed their eighth consecutive gold medal with just a one-point win over France in the championship game. For Lawson, the increasing competitiveness of global women’s basketball is a win for the entire sport.
“We’ve seen that through the tournament that every game feels like a dogfight,” Lawson noted. “It’s really hard. On any given night, if you’re not prepared to play, you’ll lose. That’s awesome for our sport.”
The game unfolded far differently than most U.S. matchups in recent memory. The Americans jumped out to an early 23-8 lead in the first quarter, a start that suggested the match would end in another dominant blowout. That changed immediately when Italy switched to a stifling 2-3 zone defense, which completely disrupted the U.S. offense. Italy closed out the first half on a 16-7 run to trail by just six points at 30-24, then carried that momentum into the third quarter with an 11-2 run that put them in front 35-32. The U.S. held a narrow 42-39 lead going into the final quarter, but Italy refused to collapse, pushing ahead 50-48 with just 4:29 left to play.
That deficit sparked a late 7-0 game-winning rally from the U.S. Stewart hit her first basket of the entire match to put the Americans up 51-50, before a critical offensive foul drawn by Chelsea Gray on Italy created an opening for Young to hit a go-ahead layup. Gray followed the defensive stop with a jumper with 1:07 remaining that pushed the U.S. lead to five points. After a late bucket from Italy’s Matilde Villa cut the lead back to three with under a minute left, the U.S. missed two chances to extend the lead to two possessions, setting up a final game-winning attempt for Italy.
Italy’s star forward Cecilia Zandalasini, who led all scorers with 14 points in the match, got an open three-point look at the buzzer to tie the game, but her shot bounced off the rim, securing the U.S. win. After the game, Zandalasini publicly apologized for an emotional outburst toward an official after the final buzzer, sparked by a missed foul call she believed should have gone Italy’s way.
“It was a lot of emotions today, but I should have kept them inside of me a little better,” Zandalasini said. This year marks Italy’s first appearance at the FIBA Women’s World Cup since 1994, and the team entered Sunday’s matchup having fallen by 34 points to the U.S. in a qualifying match back in March.
The U.S. offense was visibly hampered by Italy’s zone defense all game, shooting just 29% from the field overall and a dismal 1-for-12 from three-point range. The Americans also missed a high volume of close-range layups, leaving easy points on the board that nearly cost them the match.
“I think we missed some shots. We missed some layups, some shots that we have made in the past,” Gray said of the offensive struggles, adding that her late game-changing stop was just part of what the team needed to pull out the win. Lawson praised Gray’s impact on the final result, calling the defensive play a game-altering turning point.
“I thought that late charge Chelsea took was a big momentum changing play,” Lawson said. “It was an incredible winning play by Gray there.”
With the win, the U.S. improves to 2-0 in group play, while Italy drops to 1-1. In other Sunday matchups at the tournament, China claimed an overtime victory over the Czech Republic, Australia defeated Turkey, and Belgium beat Puerto Rico.