As Iowa gets ready for its NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 matchup, Caitlin Clark has been officially added to Team USA’s training camp squad for early April. This summer, the Stars and Stripes will try to win their eighth straight Olympic gold title, and Clark can go to Paris to watch them.
Clark has never been called up as a senior before, and this is the first time Team USA has shown interest in her Olympic chances after not including her in earlier camps. She is the only college player still playing who has been invited to the national team camp. Clark will only go to training camp if her NCAA duties don’t get in the way, according to Team USA’s official release. The Hawkeyes need to be out of the tournament by the Elite 8 in order for her to go.
In the past, the camp has been used to choose USA Basketball’s final squad for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The training camp will take place in Cleveland from April 3rd to April 5th and will include WNBA stars like Aliyah Boston, Brittney Griner, and Breanna Stewart, as well as players of the Las Vegas Aces who have won championships, such as A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young.
Clark has won three gold medals with the USA Basketball youth national teams. The most recent one was with the USA Women’s U19 National Team in 2021. The next team Iowa will play is No. 5 seed Colorado in the Sweet 16 on March 30.
The Indiana Fever are likely to pick the high school senior with the most points in NCAA Division I history with the first pick in the WNBA Draft on April 15. Fans of the WNBA got even more excited when they saw the training camp listing. It will be a buildup to the dynamic team that Clark and Boston are expected to be in Indiana.
Clark and the Hawkeyes had to work hard to beat West Virginia, which was their second win in the playoffs. Iowa won 64–53, even though they shot an uncharacteristically low 22.7 percent from the 3-point line and turned the ball over 15 times. It was especially clear that the Hawkeyes were having trouble scoring in the second quarter, when they only scored six points.
“There’s a lot of positive to take away from this when maybe we didn’t even play our best basketball or look as pretty,” Clark said after the match. “That’s more fulfilling of a win for us than going out there and winning by 30 points.”
Clark went on, “I think we used our crowd.” “First quarter, we gave up a 10-0 run, but this team never got scared.” It’s about what we know. We wished to end on a happy note.
Team USA will be led by head coach Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx. Mike Thibault of the Washington Mystics, Kara Lawson of Duke, and Joni Taylor of Texas A&M will help her. The NCAA tournament is still going on, and Duke is set to play UConn in the Sweet 16 of region 3.
Clark was invited to this camp, which means she’s in the running for a spot on the team even if she can’t go.
The list of women who will be working with USA Basketball
• Shakira Austin
• Ariel Atkins
• Aliyah Boston
• Caitlin Clark
• Chelsea Gray
• Brittney Griner
• Rhyne Howard
• Sabrina Ionescu
• Jewell Loyd
• Kelsey Plum
• Breanna Stewart
• Diana Taurasi
• A’ja Wilson
• Jackie Young
