NORFOLK, Va. — ODU women's basketball head coach DeLisha Milton-Jones knows what it takes to win the gold. After all, she's got two of her own as a member of Team USA in 2000 and 2008. The 2024 Olympic cycle brought a new kind of challenge for Milton-Jones, as a member of the Team USA selection committee.
"I was on the Olympic committee. It was a four year stint. We had to pick the team and we picked a great team. Our job was to pick the 12 best players," says Milton Jones, standing in the Monarchs practice facility after leading her team through a grueling workout.
The 12 players they chose were announced on June 11th. Per usual, 12 WNBA stars adorned the roster, including Diana Taurasi going for her 6th golf medal. Only this year the selections brought controversy due to a name that WASN'T on the list.
"I know people were in an uproar because they were expecting Caitlin to be on the team."
"Caitlin" of course is Caitlin Clark, the WNBA rookie phenom, all time college basketball leader in scoring and recent number 1 pick in the most viewed WNBA Draft of all time. Clark has quickly become a fan favorite, attendance and ratings have increased drastically in her rookie season, and it has all led some to question why she wasn't chosen for the Olympic team.
"It's kind of hard to do that when she never attended a camp, and team chemistry is a major factor for us going and putting a team together to go to France," Milton-Jones explains the thought process behind the selection. "We don't have the years that our European counterparts have to have their team together. Some of them have been playing together for 8 years. We put a team together and they practice for two weeks. We had to take all of those factors into consideration when trying to choose the team."
Milton-Jones continues, touching on the notion that Clark should have been included for marketing purposes, which she says the committee discussed. "We also know that having Caitlin on the team, yes it's going to bring fanfare, it's gonna be wonderful for the marketing and for the viewership of the game, period. And it's on the world stage, but that's not the main reason why someone should be on a team. They should be on a team because they can contribute. She hasn't played any international basketball and it's a different style, and if you think America's physical, wait until you get to Europe. All of these things factored into whether it would be good for her now, or later to be on the team."
Clark's inclusion wouldn't happen in a vacuum either, it would mean another player staying home.
"Would it be fair to an individual who showed up to every camp, and they made the sacrifices, and they put in the time, and they built the chemistry, and they made the changes based off of the critiques that we gave? They did what they were supposed to do. It would be highly unfair for someone's Olympic dreams to be crushed because one other individual can do something better off the court than they can do on the court. As a committee out job was to stay strictly within the confines of the court."
Milton-Jones called Clark a "special player" and applauded her toughness, with an eye towards Clark becoming an Olympian down the road. "Her time will come, she's talented enough, she has a very bright future in front of her. You'll see her." In the meantime she hopes all of the new fans of women's basketball will continue watching as Team USA goes for their 8th straight gold medal, "This is a beautiful moment within the women's game. I want everyone to continue to support it. The best is definitely yet to come, we've only scratched the surface."