The United States Women’s Basketball Team is eyeing their fourth consecutive championship title

The FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup has almost concluded, but the most important game is yet to come. On Saturday, the United States will take on China in the gold medal match. The U.S. has been perfect so far in the tournament with a record of 7-0 and made it to the final following an 83-43 win over Canada in the semifinal. China knocked off host Australia in a very tight 61-59 win.

This is the fourth consecutive final the United States will be part of and the women hope to make it four consecutive FIBA World Cup championship titles, as well. “Our goal was to win a gold medal and we’re in position to do that,” U.S. coach Cheryl Reeve said.

Breanna Stewart led the United States in the semifinal match with 17 points and with strong team defense, the team held Canada to only 43 points which is a record for fewest points scored by a team in a World Cup semifinal game.

The game plan was to do the best the team could defensively to limit Canada’s ability to score and they did just that. U.S. forward Alyssa Thomas said, “Canada has been playing really well all tournament and the goal was just to come out there and really limit them. We were really locked in from the jump with our game plan.”

The U.S. will need to use that same game plan in their championship game with China, as well. In the semifinal game, Chinese guard Liwei Yang put up 18 points in the win and Siyu Wang added 14 of her own. If the United States can shut down those two players and continue playing as strong as they have been offensively, the gold medal will be well within reach.

The United States played China last weekend in group play defeating them 77-63; the closest a team has come to the U.S. this tournament. A’ja Wilson led her team to victory in that game with 20 points and will look to have a repeat performance on Sunday.

While the odds are certainly in the United States’ favor, if China can deny Wilson and Steward the opportunity to score, the game has the potential to be even closer than it was the last time these two teams met.

The team is on pace to break several records with such a talented team. If the Americans win, it will mark the 30th win in a row in World Cup play. The records for scoring margin and points per game are right there on the horizon and the young team with many new faces will do its best to break them.

For night owls who may still be up Saturday at 2:00 a.m. on the east coast in the U.S., it should be an entertaining game to tune into.