USA Basketball Announces Roster For Exhibition Versus Lady Vols

The USA Basketball Women’s National Team an-nounced Thursday its roster for the exhibition game versus the Tennessee Lady Vols at Food City Center on Nov. 5.Five-time Olympic cham-pion Diana Taurasi headlines the group that will appear in Knoxville. Among the 11 play-ers slated to compete vs. UT are Aliyah Boston, Kahleah Copper, Allisha Gray, Brittney Griner, Rhyne Howard, Sabri-na Ionescu and Azurá Stevens.As a re-minder to Lady Vol fans, this game is not part of the season ticket package, so tickets must be purchased separately. If you have not already done so, go to AllVols.com to reserve your seats for this special event.Free parking in all cam-pus lots will be available for that game, as will free shuttle service from the Ag Campus. Fans will be dropped off and picked up immediately adja-cent to Food City Center. ADA shuttles and entry will operate the same as previous years. The USA women will also play Duke on Nov. 12 with a slightly different roster after holding a training camp in Atlanta from Nov. 7-9. The game versus Tennessee will be televised on SEC Network at 6 p.m. ET. The USA’s matchup with Duke will stream live on ACC Network Extra at Noon ET, with a tape-delayed pre-sentation on ACC Network at 8 p.m. ET. All games are avail-able on the ESPN App.2021-24 USA Basketball Women’s National Team head coach Cheryl Reeve (Minne-sota Lynx) will coach the USA in both games and lead training camp. She will be assisted by Mike Thibault (Washington Mystics) and Curt Miller (Los Angeles Sparks).Tanisha Wright (Atlanta Dream), who led the Dream to their fi rst playoff appearance in fi ve years this season, and Stephanie White (Connecticut Sun), the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year, will serve as court coaches. Wright will coach in Knoxville, Tennessee, while White will be in Atlanta and Durham, North Carolina.As part of its Olympic preparation, USA Basketball will participate in the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tourna-ment in early February before hosting training camp during the NCAA Women’s Final Four™ in Cleveland. Details will be confi rmed at a later date.This will mark the fourth time the Lady Vols have wel-comed the USA Women’s National Team to Rocky Top for an exhibition, holding a 1-2 all-time mark against that program. On all three previ-ous occasions, the UT squads made their way to NCAA Final Fours at the end of those sea-sons, with two of them winning national championships (1996, 2008). Meanwhile, the USA teams went on to win gold in the Olympic Games of 1996, 2000 and 2008.On Nov. 7, 1999, Tennes-see pulled off an upset, edg-ing the USA squad, 65-64, in Knoxville. The national team returned on Nov. 4, 2007, and the Lady Vols kept the defi cit close before falling, 83-72.