US women’s basketballers show gold pedigree

The US women’s basketball team rallied from a ten-point deficit to record an emphatic 88-63 win over potential Olympic medallists Great Britain on Wednesday. Coach Geno Auriemma credited the American team’s strength in depth for their emphatic response and gave a glimpse into the obstacles their opponents will face if they are to stop his country claiming a seventh gold medal in the past eight Games. “If this was a soccer game and you were down 2-0 against the USA, you might come back and win 4-2,” said Auriemma, deliberately using a football analogy in a city famed for the game. “You expect to win a soccer game against the USA because you think you are that much better, because of your history and tradition, the quality of players you have. “It is the same with the women’s basketball team and the men’s basketball team in the United States. We have the kind of players, the kind of programme, the kind of history behind us that gives us a kind of not only arrogance but it’s an expectation. “We’re the United States and we’re expected to win and we expect to win. So if we get down 11, our players look at it as it is just a matter of time before we impose ourselves on the other team. “A lot of this has to do with the depth we have. If we only had six or seven players, playing against six or seven players of Britain, maybe this would have been a very close game, maybe it would have been a loss. “Because we can count on 11 or 12 players, and maybe the depth of Britain isn’t the same, that gives our players confidence. We are never in any sort of panic and that goes back to the talent, the history, the reputation of our programme.”