Kentucky’s Rhyne Howard leads Team USA into qualifying event for 2022 FIBA World Cup
Rhyne Howard has been a Southeastern Conference Player of the Year and a First Team All-American. You don’t get there by taking the summer off.
The University of Kentucky guard earned the chance to hone her game on an international stage for the third time during her Wildcats career Sunday when she was named to USA Basketball’s roster for the 2021 AmeriCup.
Ten nations from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean will square off June 11-19 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Howard, who will be a senior at Kentucky this fall, is joined on the 12-player roster by some familiar faces. Sacred Heart Academy graduate Grace Berger of Indiana also made the squad along with SEC rivals Aliyah Boston and Destanni Henderson of South Carolina. Team USA is led by Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley.
The team, which was selected after two separate trials were conducted in Columbia, S.C., will depart for Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
The top four teams in the AmeriCup will advance to one of four qualifying tournaments next year that will determine the 12 teams in the 2022 FIBA World Cup.
In addition to Howard, Berger, Boston and Henderson, Team USA includes North Carolina State’s Jakia Brown-Turner and Elissa Cunane, Maryland’s Diamond Miller and Ashley Owusu, Northwestern’s Veronica Burton, Michigan’s Nazahrah Hillmon, Stanford’s Haley Jones and Oregon’s Sedona Prince.
“We have a great group, both on and off the court, that will certainly represent the red, white and blue well,” Staley said. “Our goal is to win a gold medal, and that’s our focus.”
In 2019, Howard, Boston, Hillmon and Miller teamed up to help the USA claim gold at the FIBA U19 World Cup; Howard, Hillmon and Prince won gold at the 2018 FIBA Americas U18 Championship.
Howard led the 2019 USA team in scoring on the way to its championship in Bangkok, Thailand, averaging 13.1 points and 5.1 rebounds per game while making 44.7 percent of her three-point attempts.
The previous summer, Howard earned most valuable player honors when the U.S. won gold in Mexico.
As a junior last season at Kentucky, Howard earned First Team All-America honors from the Associated Press, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, the United States Basketball Writers Association and the Wooden Award. The SEC’s coaches named her the league’s player of the year for the second straight season.
The Cleveland, Tenn., native averaged 20.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. She made a team-best 56 three-pointers and had 91 assists, 61 steals and 19 blocks.
For her career, Howard has scored 1,655 points, ranking seventh in UK history. Valerie Still, who played at Kentucky from 1979-83, holds the Wildcats career scoring record for women or men with 2,763 points.
Team USA opens play in the AmeriCup on Friday, taking on the Dominican Republic at 6:10 p.m. EDT in the first of its four group-play games. The top eight teams after group play advance to the quarterfinals on June 17. The semifinals are set for June 18 and the gold medal game June 19.