The Cats are in danger of missing the quarterfinals in 5X5 Olympic women’s basketball. And there’s no effective guarantee of them making that round without … pulling off what most Americans think will be doing the impossible.
The Belgium women’s national basketball team plays the United States tomorrow night in Lille for the 2024 Olympics. ALLEZ !
Game info
When: Thursday, Aug. 1 at 3 p.m. ET
Where: Decathlon Arena, Lille, France
TV: USA Network. Otherwise, watch on Peacock.
Odds: According to DraftKings Sportsbook, the Americans are 23 point favorites, with an over/under of 138.
What to watch for
First and foremost, DraftKings Sportsbook is SB Nation and Vox Media’s partner and official sportsbook.
That said, I strongly disagree with the odds. To those of you drinking the Team USA Kool-Aid, did you NOT see what happened in Antwerp last February? Did you NOT check how far Ieper is from Lille? It’s just about 25 miles! And did you NOT get that former Mystics forward Emma Meesseman played in Lille in the year BEFORE she got drafted to the Mystics?
COME ON! This game will be a lot more friendlier to the Cats, even if they lost to Germany already!
Games are meant to be played on the court. I admittedly thought the Cats would send the Germans packing. Emma Meesseman and Vanloo did their part, but the rest didn’t go along.
Again, even though the Cats lost, I just don’t think Belgium will effectively say, “Hey Team USA, you have A’ja Wilson and Diana Taurasi. Score 200 points on us and we’ll let Emma Meesseman and Julie Vanloo just sit this one out or maybe stand there for 5 minutes and do nothing.”
So as you might imagine, looking at those odds hit a nerve with me.
Now, all that said, here’s another harsh truth for all of you Cats fans who troll me on social media messages. Belgium is very talented now, but they are still unproven on the world stage. They have never won a medal before there, and they have choked to teams they were unfamiliar with (ex. Japan in the 2020 Olympics) or teams that they should have beaten (USA this past February, Germany in these Olympics).
But onto the cliches, because the Cats lost to the Germans. Somehow, someway, the Belgians need to pull this win tomorrow to improve their chances of making the quarterfinals. A close loss may very well NOT be enough for the Cats if they lose to Team USA tomorrow but beat Japan. Then again, remember what happened in Tokyo.
At the end of the day, I think Belgium will lose tomorrow. But the jury’s still out on whether they will make the quarterfinals. Do you think the Cats can at least make the final eight? Let uw know in the comments below.