Team USA opened the FIBA Women’s World Cup with a 94-61 win over China on Friday in Berlin, and Caitlin Clark turned her first tournament game into the kind of debut that changes the tone of a week. She finished with 14 points, 11 assists and no turnovers in 25 minutes, giving the Americans a clean start to a title defense that has not lost a tournament game since 2006.
That result mattered because this was not a seasoned roster rolling through a familiar script. Nine of the 12 players were making their World Cup debut, and six were playing in their first major international competition, yet Team USA still won by 33 points. Clark was not the only newcomer to make noise. Paige Bueckers scored 14 points in 20 minutes, and Rhyne Howard added 14 points with four 3-pointers, two in the first quarter and two more after that.
The game also gave Clark a place in the record book. She became the first player to log at least 10 assists with no turnovers in the Women’s World Cup since FIBA began tracking assists in 1994, and her 11 assists finished two shy of the single-game mark of 13. That record belongs to Julie Allemand, who set it against France in 2018, and Yuka Harada, who matched it against Kenya in 1994.
For all the turnover in the lineup, the Americans looked anything but unsettled. Breanna Stewart called the group the “young and turnt” crew and said they “did really well,” while Chelsea Gray said the younger players can hoop and are going to be great in their own right. Kara Lawson was just as direct, saying Clark was terrific off the bench and changed the tempo of the game with her playmaking.
That is the part Team USA will have to carry forward. The opener showed that the Americans can lean on a new wave without losing the edge that has kept them on top through four straight World Cup titles. What comes next is whether Clark and the other first-timers can keep that same control when the games tighten and the record book stops being the easiest place to make a statement.
