Plum Named To Team USA For Pan-Am Games
Full Roster
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Washington guard Kelsey Plum was named to Team USA for the upcoming Pan American Games, following three days of trials that featured 51 athletes at the United States Olympic Training Center.
The 12-member roster for the 2015 U.S. Pan American Women’s Basketball Team features seven players who have won at least one gold medal with USA Basketball, including Plum. Plum won gold at the U-19 World Championships back in the summer of 2013.
Plum is coming off a season where she helped lead Washington back to the NCAA Tournament, averaging a Pac-12 leading 22.6 points per game.
The University of Iowa’s Lisa Bluder will lead the 2015 U.S. Pan American Women’s Basketball Team, along with assistant coaches Michelle Clark-Heard of Western Kentucky University and Scott Rueck of Oregon State University.
“I’m very excited,” Bluder said. “I think we have a tremendous team. I think we have excellence at every position. And now, we are set on the gold."
The American team is comprised of all college players, but will face professionals at the Pan Am Games. The American opponents are expected to preview their rosters intended for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Players eligible for the U.S. Pan American Games Team must be U.S. citizens who currently are enrolled as full-time college students with remaining eligibility for the 2015-16 school year.
The U.S. Pan American Women’s Basketball Team players and coaches will return to Colorado on July 3 for the start of training camp and will depart for the competition in Toronto, Canada, on July 8. The 2015 Pan American Games women’s basketball competition will take place July 16-20.
The USA women have been placed into Group A and will take on Brazil on July 16, Dominican Republic on July 17 and Puerto Rico on July 18 in the preliminary round. Competing in Group B will be Argentina, Canada, Cuba and Venezuela.
The top two teams from each preliminary-round group will advance to the medal-round semifinals on July 19, while the third and fourth-placed teams will for fifth-eighth places. The semifinal winners will compete for the gold medal on July 20, while the semifinal losers will play for bronze.
The Pan Ams are a multi-sport event featuring teams from North, South and Central American and the Caribbean that are organized by the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) and played every four years in the year preceding the Olympics (2015, 2019, etc.).
Since the first Pan American Games for women in 1955, the USA has compiled an overall record of 87-15 and won eight gold medals, three silver medals and two bronze medals.
