The beginning of Cheryl Reeve’s head coaching career with Team USA got off to a flying start on Friday, with the U.S. team taking down Belgium 84-75.
Got the W 🙌@kelseyplum10 16 PTS (5/5 FG)@bri_jones18 14 PTS 6 REB@cgray209 10 PTS 8 AST
— USA Basketball (@usabasketball) February 12, 2022
We’re back Saturday to face 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico at 4:30 PM ET pic.twitter.com/bzvDQOLp7E
An assistant coach since 2014, Reeve was named head coach of the team in December 2021 and will serve in the post through the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kelsey Plum led the way for Team USA with 16 points, shooting a perfect 5-for-5 from the field and 4-for-4 from the free throw line. In her national team debut, Brionna Jones added 14 points and six rebounds while Chelsea Gray had 10 points and eight assists.
Plum said after that she thinks that playing 3×3 basketball, which she won a gold medal for at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, has helped her game.
“I think 3×3 has helped me defensively a ton,” said Plum. “I think with 3×3, there’s not a ton of help. You’re pretty much on an island a lot of times. You have to give significant ball pressure to take time off the clock, and so that’s helped me I think just trying to stay in front of people and applying pressure.
“We’ve had great effort all week, coach talked about it all week. We’ve had tremendous effort defensively, be it a lot of deflections, a lot of turnovers, but it’s because we were playing really hard. That’s the goal and it was fun.”
Recent Chicago Sky signee and 2019 WNBA Finals MVP Emma Meesseman nearly scored a triple-double for Belgium, scoring 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists.