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Allisha Gray replaces Elena Delle Donne on USA women’s basketball November roster

By Jenn Hatfield

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 6: Allisha Gray #15 of the Dallas Wings dribbles up court against the Washington Mystics on September 6, 2019 at the St. Elizabeths East Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 6: Allisha Gray #15 of the Dallas Wings dribbles up court against the Washington Mystics on September 6, 2019 at the St. Elizabeths East Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington, DC. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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On Friday, USA Basketball officially named Dallas Wings guard Allisha Gray to its roster for four exhibition games against Division I college teams and the FIBA Americas Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament in November. Gray replaces 2019 WNBA MVP Elena Delle Donne, who is recovering from a back injury.

Gray was the 2017 WNBA Rookie of the Year and has averaged 10.9 points and 2.0 assists per game in three WNBA seasons. In 2019, Gray showed a dramatic improvement in her 3-point shooting (38.4% versus 28.5% in her first two seasons) and set new career highs in minutes per game and rebounds per game. In college, she won the 2017 NCAA Championship with the University of South Carolina.

For the games against college teams from November 2 to 9, Gray joins her Dallas Wings teammate Skylar Diggins-Smith along with Minnesota’s Seimone Augustus, Napheesa Collier, and Sylvia Fowles; Seattle’s Sue Bird; Connecticut’s Layshia Clarendon; Los Angeles’ Chelsea Gray and Nneka Ogwumike; Las Vegas’ Kelsey Plum and A’ja Wilson; and Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi.

For the FIBA Americas tournament from November 14 to 17, Chicago’s Diamond DeShields and Dallas’ Arike Ogunbowale will replace Clarendon and Collier. Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve and Seattle Storm head coach Dan Hughes, two of the assistant coaches to Team USA and South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, will serve as co-head coaches for both sets of games due to Staley’s collegiate coaching responsibilities.

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Delle Donne was one of the eight players who committed in July to a new training plan ahead of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Bird, Delle Donne, Diggins-Smith, Fowles, Chelsea Gray, Ogwumike, Taurasi, and Wilson all eschewed the opportunity to play overseas during the WNBA offseason in order to participate in five training segments with Team USA between November 2019 and April 2020. “I’m super excited about it,” Staley said in July. “… This program gives us an opportunity to keep a core group of players together and to build chemistry and cohesion.”

Team USA will have to wait a little longer for Delle Donne to develop on-court chemistry with her teammates, though she also played with several of them in the 2016 Olympics and 2018 World Cup. Earlier this month, Delle Donne exited Game 2 of the WNBA Finals with back spasms, a flare-up of some late-season tightness she’d been experiencing. Ahead of Game 3, she was diagnosed with a herniated disc, but she returned to lead the Washington Mystics to a championship, averaging 15.0 points and 6.7 rebounds in three games. After the confetti rained down on the Mystics, point guard Natasha Cloud revealed that Delle Donne in fact had three herniated discs, not one.

Team USA will play additional exhibition games against college teams in 2020. The dates have not yet been announced, and according to ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel, Delle Donne’s availability for those games is unknown.

The full November schedule for Team USA is listed below.

NCAA Exhibition Games (ticket information):

November 2 at Stanford University, 4 p.m. PT
November 4 at Oregon State University, 7 p.m. PT
November 7 at Texas A&M University, 7 p.m. CT
November 9 at University of Oregon, 4 p.m. PT

FIBA Americas Pre-Qualifying Tournament in Argentina (times TBD):

November 14 vs. Brazil
November 16 vs. Argentina
November 17 vs. Colombia

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