Team USA Faces Tough Challenge Against Italy at FIBA Women’s World Cup

Team USA rattled China on opening night. Italy is making them sweat.

Two days after a 94-61 demolition of China to open the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Berlin, the four-time defending champions walked into their second group game as heavy favorites again. They walked into a fight.

By midway through the third quarter, Italy — a team that had led for just 42 seconds all night — suddenly held a 33-32 edge with 5:32 left in the period. The United States had gone ice cold, missing seven straight field goals and clanking its way to an 0-for-9 start from beyond the arc. The same team that buried 12 threes against China couldn’t buy one.

Italy, packing the paint and cutting off every driving lane, turned the game into a grind. The Americans, so fluid and free in the opener, looked rushed, crowded and out of rhythm.

Kara Lawson could see it coming even before the alarm bells started blaring on the scoreboard.

“I think we're playing physically; we're just making too many errors. We're making too many mistakes,” the USA coach said at halftime. “Italy's playing with great force. We knew they would. It's forced us into a lot of unforced errors.”

The pressure finally told in that ragged third quarter. Every catch for Team USA came with a body leaning, an arm digging, a lane closing. Italy’s defense chewed up possessions, one after another.

A scrap from the start

The warning signs were there from the opening tip at Berlin Arena.

Chelsea Gray scored first with a jumper, and the Americans quickly built an 18-8 lead by the end of the first quarter. On the surface, it looked like business as usual: nine different U.S. players scored in the opening 10 minutes, Paige Bueckers led with four points, and Italy shot just 21% while coughing up eight turnovers. Jasmine Keys’ four points were about the only bright spot for the Italians.

But this wasn’t a track meet. It was a wrestling match.

Both teams flew around defensively from the start, each racking up two steals by the midway point of the first quarter. Team USA led 11-6 with four minutes left in the period, and it already felt like every inch of space had to be earned.

Angel Reese set the tone early. In less than three minutes on the floor, she piled up a steal and two blocks, swatting shots and prowling passing lanes. The Americans, as a group, were just as disruptive: by the 6:45 mark of the second quarter, they had six steals and four blocks, turning Italy’s ball-handlers into reluctant dribblers.

The scoreboard, though, never quite reflected that defensive dominance.

Italy refuses to fold

Team USA pushed the lead to double digits, 19-8 after the first and then 26-12 early in the second. At that point, it looked like the usual script: depth, pressure, talent, game over.

Italy ripped that script in half.

Led by Cecilia Zandalasini, Italy stormed back with a 14-3 run that cut the U.S. advantage to 26-20 with 4:15 left in the half. Zandalasini, the centerpiece of Italy’s offense and the star of their opening 63-54 win over Czechia, found her rhythm again. She climbed to nine points by halftime, attacking off the dribble and punishing every defensive lapse.

Her impact stretched beyond the box score. Every time she scored, Italy’s belief grew.

Zandalasini came into the tournament already familiar to this USA staff. She plays for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries under Natalie Nakase, who doubles as a Team USA assistant. Any scouting edge, though, didn’t make her easier to contain once she got rolling.

The Americans still went into the break up 30-24, but they limped there. They managed just nine points in the second quarter, repeatedly running into a wall as Italy packed the paint and dared them to shoot from outside. The same perimeter that looked like a runway against China suddenly felt like quicksand.

Reese led the U.S. at halftime with six points, two blocks and a steal. Three other Americans had four points each, but no one had seized control of the game. The team shot 32% from the field; Italy hovered just behind at 31%.

There were problems on both sides. Zandalasini picked up her third foul before the break, putting Italy’s star in a dangerous spot in a FIBA game where five fouls mean disqualification. On the U.S. side, Napheesa Collier’s foul trouble arrived early in the third quarter. She picked up her third with 7:31 left in the period, forcing Lawson to turn to Rhyne Howard off the bench.

The game tightened, the whistles grew heavier, and suddenly both teams had to juggle rotations and risk.

A giant under real pressure

By the time Italy nudged in front 33-32 midway through the third, the United States looked nothing like the ruthless machine that has ruled this event for nearly two decades.

This is a program that hasn’t lost a World Cup game since 2006, a group chasing a fifth straight world title, and one that opened this tournament by flattening China behind a 14-point, 11-assist double-double from Caitlin Clark. That 11-assist mark set a record for an American player in World Cup play. Rhyne Howard and Bueckers had matched her scoring with 14 each in that first outing. Everything clicked.

Against Italy, nothing came easy.

Missed threes piled up. Drives met bodies. Passes skidded out of bounds or died in traffic. The same “young and turnt” roster that had danced through China’s defense found itself slogging through mud.

Lawson’s message before the game, and even before the tournament, loomed large now. With A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum ruled out just days before the World Cup for health reasons, the U.S. arrived in Berlin without its 2022 World Cup MVP and one of its most dynamic guards. Lawson had been blunt: there was no time to worry about who wasn’t here. The group on the floor had to build chemistry on the fly.

So this is the reality: a new-look USA team, with veterans like Breanna Stewart, Gray and Collier anchoring the core, and emerging stars like Clark, Bueckers and Reese learning what it means to carry the crest in a World Cup where every opponent treats you like a final.

Italy understood that from the opening tip. The Italians had already been stung by Team USA earlier in the year, a 93-59 defeat at the World Cup qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico on March 14, when Kahleah Copper led a balanced American attack with 15 points and five U.S. players hit double figures. That night, the gap looked enormous.

In Berlin, it shrank.

The road only gets steeper

This is just the second step of a long climb for the United States in Group D, where Czech Republic and China also lurk. The Americans crushed China to open play. Italy is making them work. Czechia comes next on Monday.

Group winners go straight to the quarterfinals. Second and third-place teams have to fight through a Playoff Qualification Round just to reach the last eight. It’s a format that punishes complacency and rewards every possession.

Team USA entered the tournament as the clear favorite, the only side with minus-odds to win the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup, ahead of contenders like France, Belgium, Australia and Spain. That status hasn’t changed. But days like this one in Berlin, when the shots don’t fall and the paint is crowded with bodies in blue, show exactly how thin the margins can become.

Italy didn’t back down. Zandalasini kept coming, even with foul trouble shadowing her every move. The Americans leaned on their depth, their defense, their pedigree.

The question now isn’t whether Team USA can still overpower this field. It’s how quickly this reshaped roster can harden under fire — because in Berlin, the rest of the world is no longer content to play along with the script.