Recap: Team USA beats Cats, 87-74

The Cats are now on the brink of elimination in the Olympics, even if they beat Japan on Sunday.

If you are an American, you want the USA Basketball women’s national team to beat Belgium. They did, 87-74 in Thursday night in Lille.

How the game itself went

If you expected that this win would allow the Cats to beat the spread AND put the Cats in danger of denying former Washington Mystics forward Emma Meesseman from winning a medal for her life, well, that is another matter entirely.

First let’s talk about the game. Team USA led by no more than 15 points at any point. The Cats were just NOT going to let the Americans blow then out on relatively friendly territory, considering that Meesseman played in Lille before, AND let’s not forget that Lille is next to Belgium.

But despite the fact that Meeseman scored 24 points AND current Mystics guard Julie Vanloo (11 points) also kept things interesting, the Cats still lost. The overall outcome of this game was closer than the 22-23 point prediction bookies had. That’s little solace for the Cats and their fans, however.

Though the Cats beat the spread, Team USA was still in control of this game. The Americans were only behind in this game for 2:30, all in the first quarter. And they always seemed to be in position to make this game a blowout, despite the crowd clearly being in the Cats’ favor.

For the Americans, Breanna Stewart led with 26 points, but also played 35 minutes, which shows you all that though Team USA was better than the Cats, they still had to play their stars full minutes. In addition, A’ja Wilson added 23 more points and played nearly 34 minutes. Given that Stewart and Wilson are posts, like Meesseman, there’s no doubt that they were there to keep each other in check in the post.

Last but not least, the Cats and their fans will not feel happy about this game. Even though the outcome of the game wasn’t in doubt, Sabrina Ionescu drained this long three pointer from way behind the line with 3 seconds left.

Talk about silencing the crowd.

There is a good chance that Belgium goes home early, EVEN IF they win against Japan

Belgian Cats fans won’t be happy for me writing this out loud. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see them eliminated on Sunday. That said, I would feel pretty bummed out because I thought they would medal in these games.

The loss to Team USA was expected, but their July 29 loss to Germany, which was by an even larger margin, looks really bad in retrospect. In another group, the Cats would likely be the favorite. But at best they are third place in this group after losing to Team USA and getting upset by Deutschland. And they may have to run up the score in a borderline unsportsmanlike way.

With this loss, the Cats MUST win their last game against Japan on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals. The silver lining within Group C is that the Japanese have lost to Germany and USA by more points than the Belgians have (Japan has a -37 point differential while Belgium is at 27), so Team Nihon has an even tougher task to make the elimination stage.

Let’s assume the Cats win Sunday. They are third place, but it won’t be enough. Their point differential has to be positive enough as well. If the quarterfinals had to start today (with only two games in the books), here are the third place teams in Groups A, B, and C. The two teams with the best plus/minus differential advance. The other team goes home.

• Group A: Puerto Rico (0-2, -4 point differential)
• Group B: Australia (1-1, -8 point differential)
• Group C: Belgium, (0-2, -27 point differential)

So right now, Belgium’s going home, or Vanloo’s heading back to D.C. a little early. This is when we have to see who each of these teams are playing. Things aren’t looking particularly good for the Cats here either.

• Group A: Puerto Rico plays China on Saturday at 11 a.m. ET. The Chinese haven’t won yet and have a negative point differential of -23 points, which is better than the Cats. If Puerto Rico wins, that’s bad for the Cats. If China wins, that’s better for the Cats. given the 19 point differential between these teams.
• Group B: Canada has a -26 point differential heading into their game against Nigeria on Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET. Since D’Tigresses have a -8 point differential, this is a game that Cats and Mystics fans will be rooting for Team Canada. If Nigeria wins, that’s not good for Belgium (and Japan). If Puerto Rico AND Nigeria win, and those margins are both by double digits, then that could mean that the the winner of the Cats vs Team Nihon game goes home.
• Group B: We still have another game! Australia has a -8 point differential heading into their game against France at 3 p.m. ET. Even if the Opals lose to Les Bleues, if the game is competitive, meaning within a 10 point margin, they will almost definitely make the quarterfinals.
• Group C: The Cats play Team Nihon at 5 a.m. ET on Sunday. They will know the point differential of the Puerto Rico vs. China game, but there is still a lot left to chance with the Canada vs. Nigeria game. So, the Cat and Japanese can’t afford to just win and get in the quarterfinals. They have to win by as many points as possible so their final point differential will be as good as possible.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.