Team USA finished group play at the FIBA Women’s World Cup with a 105-64 demolition of Czechia in Berlin on Monday. That is the 33rd consecutive World Cup win for the Americans, a streak stretching back to 2006.
It is also the less interesting of their last two games by a wide margin.
Sunday was uncomfortable
The United States beat Italy 55-52. Fifty-five points. Against a team that is not among the top five in the world.
Jackie Young led the Americans with 10 points. Cecilia Zandalasini led all scorers in the game with 14, which tells you everything about how the American offense functioned that afternoon.
The finish was chaotic. With the U.S. up three in the closing seconds, Zandalasini tried to shake Young near the top of the arc, attempted a shot fake that Young ignored, and then threw herself to the floor in one of the more transparent flops of the tournament. No call came. She got the ball back for a final attempt that was not close.
Then she turned and unloaded on the official, which was a curious choice given that Young never touched her.
Why the Italy game matters more than the blowout
Team USA has been winning World Cups by 40 for twenty years. The 105-64 result against Czechia tells you nothing you did not already know.
The Italy game tells you something real: when this roster’s shots do not fall, there is no obvious plan B. Scoring 55 points in a FIBA game is a level of offensive dysfunction that would lose a knockout game to any of the top European sides.
Ignore it at your own risk. The last time the American women lost a meaningful international game, it started exactly this way.
The knockout path
The U.S. enters the knockout round as one of three teams with a perfect group record and one of four squads with byes into the quarterfinals. Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and the rest of the roster face the winner of Hungary and Japan on Thursday.
From there it is three wins in four days to repeat as world champion. That compressed schedule is where depth and half-court execution decide things, and both are fair questions for this group.
The prediction
They are still going to win it. The talent gap is enormous and one bad shooting afternoon does not change that.
But the Italy game was a warning that the margin is smaller than the streak suggests. Berlin is going to be more interesting than anyone expected in June.
Sources
- https://www.olympics.com/en/news/basketball-2026-fiba-womens-world-cup-team-usa-results-scores
- https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25497109-fiba-womens-world-cup-2026-ko-bracket-qualified-teams-schedule-odds-and-predictions
- https://larrybrownsports.com/basketball/italy-player-gave-the-worst-acting-job-trying-to-sell-a-foul-against-team-usa/769109
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
