US women to play in Puerto Rico for FIBA World Cup qualifier

The U.S. will play in Puerto Rico in March for the FIBA Women’s World Cup qualifier.

The Americans, who have already qualified for the World Cup next year in Germany, are in a pool with Italy, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Senegal and Spain.

The U.S. will open competition on March 11 vs. Senegal, followed by Puerto Rico a day later. The Americans play Italy on March 14 and New Zealand the following day. The U.S. and Spain will close out competition on March 17.

There will be a training camp or two for the Americans before the qualifying tournament, which most likely would include Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark. She said during her exit interviews that she was going to be preparing this offseason to play for USA Basketball.

“There’s some USA Basketball stuff that is probably my top priority right now that I need to prepare for, and I think that will help me prepare for next season, too,” she said last week. “But obviously, then you have to prepare for USA Basketball in some manner, so there’s just a lot of different things you got to figure out and balance. And, you know, I’ll work through a lot of that, too.”

Clark has been sidelined since the middle of July with groin and ankle injuries.

While there’s a strong possibility that Clark would be playing there, the Americans most likely would be without their coach, Kara Lawson. The coach of Duke’s women’s team was recently named the U.S. coach Olympic coach for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. The World Cup qualifier is right before the start of the NCAA Tournament.

Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 league in Miami, is expected to be done with its season before the start of the qualifier.

FIBA will also be having qualifying tournaments in Istanbul, Lyon-Villeurbanne, France; and Wuhan, China. Belgium, Australia and Nigeria have already qualified for the World Cup as well as host Germany. So the top three finishers not including those teams in Istanbul, China and Puerto Rico will advance to the World Cup.

In France, it will be the top two teams not including Germany and Nigeria.