Breanna Stewart on Sunday took the FIBA Women’s World Cup trophy and swung it back and forth in a sweeping motion as golden confetti fluttered through the air.
Stewart helped ensure Team USA remains the gold standard.
The Americans survived an early scare from France before cruising to a 97-79 win to capture their fifth consecutive FIBA Women’s World Cup title.
“We were ready,” said Stewart, who earned her second World Cup MVP award after leading the U.S. with 22 points, 10 rebounds and four assists.
Sunday was the game the U.S. had been anticipating since the World Cup started. Of course, they respected every opponent in their path to the gold medal. But France was the biggest threat to American gold.
That was apparent early on as France had the U.S. staring down its largest deficit of the tournament — 14 points in the second quarter.
Ultimately, the U.S. saved its best for last.
The team used a 26-14 rally to cut France’s double-digit lead to only two by halftime.
Then in the third quarter, the Americans took over.
Of course, it all started with Stewart.
She made a layup to tie the game on Team USA’s first possession and grabbed a rebound on the other end.
The hits kept coming for France.
That hot-shooting that powered France’s dominant run through the tournament finally cooled off at arguably the worst time. France knocked in only one 3 in the third quarter amid the Americans’ rally.
Gabby Williams, France’s captain who told the Americans “we’re coming for you” at WNBA All-Star, went scoreless in the third quarter as the U.S. outscored France 30-12.
The Americans led by 16 entering the fourth quarter and never took their foot off the gas.
Jackie Young had 18 points, six rebounds and five assists and Chelsea Gray contributed 12 points, four rebounds and five assists.
Meanwhile, Williams finished with 20 points and seven assists and Dominique Malonga added 21 points.
“Our group, our starters, especially when we got down big, we didn’t crumble under pressure,” Stewart said. “We know we’ve been in these games, we’ve been in many, many games like this and basketball is a game of runs and their run wasn’t going to dictate how we were going to play the rest of the game and continuing to give each other confidence I think that was the thing.”
One night earlier, Stewart didn’t want to talk about Sunday being a highly-anticipated rematch of the 2024 Paris Olympics gold medal game. But she predicted that the team who could better relegate their emotions in the moment would be the ones showered in shiny gold confetti.
She was right.
Stewart takes immense pride in Team USA being the standard for women’s basketball that the rest of the world is still chasing.
“USA Basketball has continued to kind of show up and go for gold,” said Stewart, now a four-time World Cup champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist. “We want to make sure that we continue to build on that standard and everybody else knows it, so I think I’m really happy with the way that we let the rest of the world know that our goal is always gold.”
Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
