“I don’t consider pressure an obstacle,” said Union University women’s basketball head coach, Mark Campbell. “But there is of course a tremendous amount of pressure when coaching with USA basketball because they don’t expect to lose, and they tell you that from the beginning.”
114-19. 109-44. 197-32! The USA U16 women’s team clearly did not lose, which led to an undefeated showing at FIBA Americas in Chile and ultimately a gold medal under Campbell’s coaching.
Here are some stats to shed light on just how dominant this team was (if the scores don’t already do that, hopefully this helps). Team USA outscored opponents 618-195 over the course of six games. In these games, they forced an average of almost 30 turnovers per game, while only being turned over about 16 times per game. Not only that, but the USA held every single one of their opponents to under 50 points, while never scoring below 87.
As one can see, this team did not have many weaknesses. Campbell had a similar thought about his players.
“Once I had my team, I began assessing each of their strengths and weaknesses, and a lot of them don’t have very many weaknesses,” Campbell said. “They’re the best players in the world for their age.”
A moment made famous on social media, Team USA beat El Salvador by almost 100 points. The team also overshadowed them in height by an average of 5 inches.
The dominance of this team is evident, but what may be overlooked is how truly well-oiled this machine was. In the second half of the game against El Salvador, the USA assisted on 14 of the 17 baskets made. That means that on the majority of the shots made, one player made a pass to another that led to them scoring. Over the course of the tournament, they averaged 26.5 assists per game. If that stat were compared to that of all the teams in the NBA, they would rank fifth in the league.
Their selflessness is elite, and that is to be expected since the team is made up of 12 players that were chosen from a pool of the 150 best women’s high school players in the country. The whittling down of the roster was not Campbell’s job but training the players during the trials was.
“There were trials that lasted five days, where 150 girls come in, and the team is eventually cut down to 12,” said Campbell. “I was in charge of developing the training that took place during that five day span.”
Campbell’s duty was to put these girls through drills, training and games that would help the committee decide who would be a part of team USA.
“It was very much like being in camp, the training was,” Campbell said. “Once it got to actually coaching the team, I just did it like I’ve always done.”
Campbell is no stranger to winning, as he became the fastest basketball coach to reach 600 wins in any classification in January 2019. Despite his history of victory, Campbell is not just about winning. One of his primary focuses is building relationships and genuinely caring for his players. This is ultimately one of the keys to his success.
“If you have their respect and you care about them, it is very easy to coach talented players,” said Campbell.
Campbell also attributes his success this summer to USA basketball’s ability to cultivate an environment where he and his players were able to quickly grow together as a team. When asked what his favorite moment from the summer was, Campbell elaborated on the team chemistry.
“I think coaching people for a short time period and being able to really care about them is special,” Campbell said. “USA Basketball does a great job of getting to know each other really well. The last team meeting before our last game was probably my favorite moment.”
It was a golden moment to encapsulate an exceedingly golden summer for Campbell. Now Campbell looks forward to next summer as he will prepare to lead the same team to Romania in hopes of bringing home the gold medal at the World Championship. To learn more about Campbell’s summer, click here.