Delle Donne Coming Home for Olympic Showcase

The USA Basketball Women’s National Team will kick off its upcoming exhibition tournament at the University of Delaware’s Bob Carpenter Center.

Superstar Elena Delle Donne will once again visit her old stomping ground when the USA Basketball Women’s National Team hosts a four-team exhibition tournament at UD’s Bob Carpenter Center July 27.

The USA squad will host Australia, Canada and France in the three-stop showcase July 27–31. The first stop is at The Bob July 27. The showcase’s first game will feature Australia, the second-ranked team in the world, and Canada at 5 p.m. The second game, at 7:30 p.m., pits the U.S. national team against France, which took silver at the 2012 Olympics.

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The Delaware Sports Commission and UD worked to raise funds to bring the showcase to Delaware.

“The Delaware Sports Commission is excited about the opportunity to work with USA Basketball again and further strengthen our relationship with the U.S. Olympic movement,” Matthew Robinson, chairman of the sports commission and professor of sport management at UD, said in a statement. “This is also a great opportunity for the state to receive national and international exposure. The DSC, UD Athletics and Gene Delle Donne worked with USA Basketball throughout the spring to get it done. It was a true team effort. As a UD faculty member, hosting such a high profile international event fits with the university’s mission of being a global university. Finally and most importantly, it is great that Elena Delle Donne will have the chance to play before her Delaware family before chasing her dream of winning gold at the Rio Games.”

The 2016 U.S. Olympic team, five-time defending Olympic gold medalists, features three-time gold medalists and tri-captains Sue Bird (Seattle Storm), Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever) and Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury); two-time Olympic gold medalists Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx) and Sylvia Fowles (Minnesota Lynx); and 2012 Olympic gold medalists Tina Charles (New York Liberty), Angel McCoughtry (Atlanta Dream), Maya Moore (Minnesota Lynx) and Lindsay Whalen (Minnesota Lynx). Competing in their first Olympic Games are Delle Donne (Chicago Sky), Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury) and Breanna Stewart (University of Connecticut).

U.S. Olympic women’s basketball teams have earned a record seven gold medals, one silver medal and one bronze medal, and are 58–3 all-time in Olympic competition. The 2016 Olympic Games will be held Aug. 5–21 in Rio de Janeiro.

Photo courtesy of USA Basketball

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