Recap: WNBA All-Stars beat Team USA, 117-109

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale scored 34 points for the All-Stars and was named the MVP.

The USA Basketball women’s national team lost to the WNBA All-Stars in the 2024 All-Star Game, 117-109 in Phoenix on Saturday night.

I know, the Washington Mystics weren’t invited to this party. That said, Team USA will play Belgium, which has Mystics guard Julie Vanloo. And if the Americans had a less-than-stellar performance, then you can expect the Cats to take notice.

And for the Cats, I’m sure they will take notice later Sunday morning.

The thing that gives me cause to pause with Team USA was that they were down by as many as 20 points in this game in the fourth quarter (before the American evened things up later on to keep the score margin more respectable). They turned the ball over 14 times compared to 8 for the All-Stars.

Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale was the MVP of the game, where she played for the All-Stars. She scored 21 of her 34 points in the third quarter when the All-Stars began to take control and never let go. In the first half, the game was evenly matched, but Team USA was able to have some smaller leads then.

Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell was also impressive, scoring 13 points off the bench on 6-of-8 shooting. In most All-Star Games, people wouldn’t think too much of it. But considering that this is Team USA playing their first friendly against a mish-mash WNBA All-Star team made up of some Team USA snubs and Jonquel Jones, who has Bahamian and Bosnian dual citizenship, again, I have cause to pause, though I’m not necessarily panicking either.

Now, yes, there’s another Indiana Fever guard whom many want me to write about: Caitlin Clark. She started the game and wasn’t her trademark self as a scorer with 4 points on 2-of-9 shooting. But Clark dished 10 assists tonight, including this one below to Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese.

Reese, played 18 minutes off the bench, getting a double double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

As for Team USA, Breanna Stewart had an impressive game with 31 points and 10 rebounds, while Diana Taurasi started the game, scoring 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting. A’ja Wilson added 22 points.

But again, while the numbers looked good for Team USA, they still lost to a team that was more hastily put together than they were. Just saying.

For the WNBA All-Stars, they now head off for their summer vacations. But for Team USA, they will get one more friendly before the games actually count in France. They will head off to London, United Kingdom for a friendly against Germany on Tuesday. Tip off is at 3 p.m. ET (or 8 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time). You can watch it on FS1.