Amid the controversy over Caitlin Clark being left off the U.S. women’s basketball roster for the 2024 Olympics, many WNBA fans pointed out that Arike Ogunbowale was another notable member of the team.
The Dallas Wings guard is a three-time WNBA All-Star who also earned first- and second-team All-WNBA honors during her previous five professional seasons. She also won the 2021 WNBA All-Star Game MVP award. So far this year, Ogunbowale is putting up the best numbers of her career, averaging 24.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 2 .9 steals per game.
At Notre Dame, she won the 2018 national championship and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament, in addition to earning ACC Athlete of the Year honors.
Appearing on the “Nightcap” podcast with Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson, Ogunbowale explained that she withdrew her name from consideration months earlier because she could see how politics played a role in the selection process.
“I kind of felt like I wasn’t going to participate in it,” Ogunbowale said. “I just felt the atmosphere. When it comes to things like that, it doesn’t really have much to do with your game.”
“I withdrew my name from the pool months ago,” she added. “When the list came out, I know everyone thought, ‘Arike should have been on it.’ “I knew I wouldn’t be in it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think last year that I might be in the team, that I was good enough to make the team.”
With her 24.9 points per game, Ogunbowale is the top scoring guard in the WNBA. (A’ja Wilson is the league’s leading scorer overall with 28 points per game.) She certainly faced stiff competition at that position on Team USA’s roster, which included Diana Taurasi, Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum, Jewell Loyd, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young. . But as Ogunbowale said, fitness is apparently also a consideration in a subjective process.
“When I think about women’s basketball and the number of years I played in college and in the pros, politics always comes into play,” Ogunbowale said. “Whether that’s American basketball, All-Star teams, [All-WNBA] first team, stuff like that – there’s politics. There is politics in everything.
Wings head coach Latricia Trammell spoke out in support of her star and criticized Ogunbowale’s omission from the U.S. squad.
“I don’t like it,” Trammell said, via ClutchPoints. “But I’m very proud of the players who did make it. I know they will represent our country extremely well. But you always talk about Arike, he should be in the MVP conversation… I was disappointed to see her didn’t see her name because I think she deserves it. I’m not taking away from the players who did make it.’
