Team USA survived an historic upset scare on Sunday, narrowly defeating Italy 55-52 in a tense Group D match at the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup in Berlin. And as expected, the uncharacteristically low-scoring game triggered a wave of scrutiny. Some sections of the reaction were, however, relatively forgiving, attributing the ugly offensive showing to Italy’s physical defensive approach and even finding credit in the fact that USA won despite the struggles.

For WNBA analyst Rachel DeMita, however, she wasn’t buying the idea that Team USA’s ugly offensive showing was simply because Italy played physical defense. In fact, after watching the Americans escape with a 55-52 win, the former college basketball player argued that Team USA’s defense was hardly dominant and suggested Italy could have every reason to be frustrated with the officiating. She also attributed a portion of the blame to the coaching, as she expressed quite a bit of frustration with the rotation decisions in that game.

“Crazy enough, the refs were on our side tonight. There were a couple of calls down the stretch — I’m like, man, if I was rooting for Italy, I’d be kind of pissed right now. There were a couple of really sketchy calls down the stretch. It shouldn’t have been this close. There’s not one player on Team USA who played well today. I really don’t know what was going on.

“Someone said, ‘Give it up to Team USA’s defense — that’s why they were shooting so bad.’ No, that was not why they were shooting so bad. Team USA’s defense had zero rotation. There were so many times we had players camping out in the paint. And then on top of that, the commentators were talking about how physical the game was. Stop with that, please. It’s not. The refs were calling the game tight and in favour of USA,” DeMita said on Sunday’s episode of her Courtside Club podcast.

Like DeMita pointed out, Team USA really had a very poor shooting night against Italy in that game. The team shot a miserable 29% from the floor, making only 16 of 56 total field-goal attempts. They also shot a paltry 8% from beyond the arc, finishing the game 1-of-12 from 3-point range. And for DeMita, none of those poor shooting numbers were on Italy’s defence. In her view, it was a product of poor rotation and a coaching approach that failed to put players in positions to execute.

And the officiating numbers do appear to support at least part of her argument about the whistle. Italy was assessed eight more personal fouls than the United States across the game, giving the Americans a significant advantage at the free-throw line. Italy’s best player, Cecilia Zandalasini, also accumulated four fouls and was playing in foul trouble. Meanwhile, not a single Team USA player was in foul trouble, with none recording more than two personal fouls across the entire game.

The frustration on the Italian side reached a very visible point late in the game when Zandalasini attempted a potentially game-tying three-pointer and claimed Jackie Young had poked her in the eye, without a foul being called. And as a result, she was visibly furious, that it required the coaching staff to physically hold her back, although she later apologised publicly for her reaction. 

Ultimately, the point DeMita was making is clear: that performance carried no meaningful positives whatsoever, and was nothing short of abysmal regardless of the final result. Winning, of course, is still a positive. It always is. But the goal for Team USA in their final group game against the Czech Republic, and throughout the rest of the tournament, has to be a performance that actually reflects the standard this squad is capable of. Sunday was not it, and everyone in that locker room knows it.