Brink, Burdick, Howard, Van Lith make U.S. Olympic women's 3x3 basketball team for Paris
Cameron Brink, Cierra Burdick, Rhyne Howard and Hailey Van Lith made the U.S. Olympic women's 3x3 basketball team for the Paris Games.
A USA Basketball committee selected the team.
The quartet will bid to give the U.S. repeat gold in the event, which made its Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Brink, Burdick and Van Lith were on the team that won the FIBA World Cup last June. Howard played with Burdick and Van Lith at a FIBA World Series event in April, placing second to a Canadian team.
LIST: Team USA athletes qualified for Paris Olympics
Brink, the World Cup MVP, was the second pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft to the Los Angeles Sparks. The 22-year-old was an All-American at Stanford.
Burdick, 30, is the only woman with multiple 3x3 World Cup titles as part of U.S. teams in 2014 and 2023.
She played at the University of Tennessee from 2011-15, then spent parts of five seasons in the WNBA, the most recent in 2021. She spent part of the winter with a French club.
Burdick could be the last Pat Summitt-coached player to play at an Olympics. She was a freshman at Tennessee in Summitt's last season in 2011-12.
Summitt, who died in 2016, played in the first Olympic women's basketball tournament in 1976, taking silver with the U.S.
After that, at least one player who was coached by Summitt made all 10 Olympic women's teams from 1980 (boycotted Moscow Games) through 2016. Then at the Tokyo Games, another Summitt pupil, Kara Lawson, was the U.S. women's 3x3 head coach.
Howard, 24, was the 2022 WNBA Rookie of the Year and an All-Star the last two seasons for the Atlanta Dream. She was one of 14 players invited to an early April national team training camp for the 5x5 team.
Van Lith, 22, is set to become the first American man or woman to play in the Olympics during their NCAA career since 1988.
Earlier this spring, she transferred after one season at LSU to Texas Christian for her final year of college basketball. She was an All-ACC player at Louisville before that.
At the Tokyo Games, the U.S. women took gold in the 3x3 event’s Olympic debut with WNBA standouts Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young.
In 3x3, teams play outdoors on a half-court with a 10-minute game clock and 12-second shot clock. The first team to 21 points via one-point and two-point field goals wins, or whichever team is leading when time expires.
The U.S. head coach is Jennifer Rizzotti, though coaches are not allowed on the court during 3x3 games.
The U.S. Olympic men’s 3x3 and 5x5 teams were previously announced. The women's 5x5 team is expected to be announced over the next month.
Cameron Brink talks Stanford basketball, Olympic 3x3 dreams, and mental health
In a conversation with NBC Sports last Summer, Stanford senior Cameron Brink reflected on her time as a Cardinal and opened up about her 2024 Paris Olympic dreams.
