USA Women Cut Down Tall Ferns 96-60 Behind 27-6 Second Quarter Effort

BEIJING, China (Aug. 17, 2008) - In its final preliminary round game, the 2008 U.S. Women's Olympic Team (5-0) tucked another dominating performance under its belt as they head into the medal round quarterfinals.

The U.S., which had won its first four games by an average of 44.8 points a game, needed 10 minutes to warm up before securing the blowout. Outscoring their opponent 27-6 in the second quarter, the USA women pounded New Zealand (1-4) 96-60 Sunday night at Wukesong Arena in Beijing, China.

The USA, which emerged from Group B with the No. 1 seed, opens medal round quarterfinal play at 8:00 p.m. (8:00 a.m. EDT on USA, USA HD) on Wednesday, Aug. 19 against South Korea (2-3), the No. 4 seed from Group A.

"Once again, we're pleased to get a game behind us and I feel like we got better in the process which I think we did," said USA head coach Anne Donovan. "I think these (upcoming) games are going to be really interesting. There is really only one team on our mind, and that's South Korea right now."

Tina Thompson (Houston Comets) led four U.S. scorers in double figures with 15 points; Katie Smith (Detroit Shock) added 13 points; Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx) tallied 12 points and Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever) contributed 11 points.

"We want to be seeded number one in our pool and go from there," Thompson said. "This is why we play. We knew this is how it was going to be, and that's how the tournament is set up and hopefully through our pool play, we have prepared ourselves enough to face our opponents. The competition is going to get a lot stronger from this point on, it's one and done. But that's why we play at the level that we played throughout the pool play to get to this point."

The U.S. dominated nearly every statistical category Sunday night, outrebounding New Zealand 36-27, forcing 21 turnovers and scoring 40 points in the paint to New Zealand's 12.

While the USA shot 44.4 percent from the field in the first period, well below the 57.3 percent it would shoot for the game, New Zealand made 7-of-15 from the field and sank two 3-pointers in the first quarter to keep the Americans within five points, 23-18, when the first quarter buzzer sounded.

Augustus opened the second period with a baseline drive and after the U.S. had expanded its lead to 31-22, New Zealand called a timeout with 7:10 on the clock. Coming out of the break, the USA forced a shot clock violation, one of seven turnovers it forced in the second period alone, and from there the red, white and blue raced to 21 unanswered points. Thompson tallied 10 points during the spurt, and the USA took a 50-22 lead when DeLisha Milton-Jones (Los Angeles Sparks) sank a bucket with 19.4 seconds remaining before the halftime intermission. New Zealand's Jillian Harmon, a rising senior at Stanford University, hit a baseline jumper to beat the buzzer, and the score was 50-24 as the USA headed to the locker room.

Led by eight points from Smith, who sank one of the USA's three 3-pointers in the period, the USA outscored New Zealand 25-18 in the third quarter to improve its lead to 75-42.

The U.S. continued to control the game through the final buzzer, taking its biggest lead, 29 points, off an Augustus basket at 2:40 that brought the score to 92-53.