Basketball
Reports: Two former Notre Dame women’s basketball stars make 2024 Olympic team for Paris
Jewell Loyd and Jackie Young are set to become Notre Dame’s first-ever repeat U.S. Olympians in women’s basketball when the 2024 Games are staged July 26-Aug. 11 in Paris.
Both former Irish star guards are on the 12-player, 5-on-5 roster that was reported Saturday by The Athletic.
Loyd also made the traditional 5-on-5 team in 2021 (the Olympics were delayed from 2020 due to the COVID pandemic), while Young was part of the first 3-on-3 squad that year. Both clubs went on to win gold in Tokyo.
More: Report: Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark left off 2024 USA Olympic team
Loyd and Young are joined on this season’s 5×5 group, a team loaded in Olympic experience, by Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Copper, Chelsea Gray, Brittney Griner, Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, Alyssa Thomas and A’ja Wilson. All 12 members are current WNBA standouts.
Taurasi, who turns 42 on Tuesday, is on her record sixth Olympic team, while Young and Ionescu, both 26, are the youngest players on this year’s club.
Taurasi will be chasing her sixth gold, and the U.S. women as a whole will be seeking their eighth in a row.
Highly celebrated overall No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark, after much anticipation over whether she would make the team, was left off. The Indiana Fever rookie is the top scorer in NCAA history and a two-time player of the year.
Ex-Irish star Arike Ogunbowale, 27, was omitted as well after being widely seen as a viable candidate to be chosen for the first time.
In 2021, Skylar Diggins-Smith, then 30, did make the team for the first time.
Diggins-Smith, Loyd, Young and Ruth Riley-Hunter (in 2004) are the lone ex-ND women’s basketball players to make a U.S. Olympic team.
Additionally, former Irish star Natalie Achonwa has represented Canada three times.
Loyd, 30, is in her 10th WNBA season, all with the Seattle Storm. She was averaging 19.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.5 steals heading into the weekend.
Loyd won the league scoring title last year at a career-high 24.7 points per game and helped Seattle capture WNBA championships in 2018 and 2020.
With Young among the stars, the Las Vegas Aces became the league’s first repeat champion in 21 years last season. She led the WNBA along the way in net field goal percentage at 61.7.
This season, Young is averaging 18.3 points, 7.0 assists (third in the league) and 5.4 rebounds.
Analysis: How Notre Dame women’s basketball is turning its depth from liability to strength
She is one of a pacesetting four Aces on the Olympic roster, alongside Gray, Plum and Wilson. The Phoenix Mercury are next with three players.
As for Ogunbowale, the sixth-year Dallas Wings star is second in the league in scoring at 26.6 (Wilson leads at 28.0), first in steals at 3.1 and first in free throw percentage among qualifiers at 95.2%. She’s also averaging 5.0 assists and 4.2 rebounds.
Ogunbowale could be an option as well for the 3×3 group when that roster is announced.
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