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USA Basketball tabs Lynx coach/general manager Cheryl Reeve as national team head coach

Minnesota Lynx head coach and general manager Cheryl Reeve will be the next USA Basketball women's national team head coach, the organization announced Wednesday.

"I just feel so excited to get started, and I can't wait," Reeve said upon the announcement. "We have a tremendous amount of talent in the WNBA and in the college ranks if you're watching."

"It's really exciting," she added. "[It's] a really exciting opportunity and I just feel blessed to be able to work with the best athletes in the world. And so I'm excited about the opportunity to bring us all together and try to qualify for the Olympics and compete for gold."

Reeve's first international duties will be the FIBA qualifying tournament from Feb. 10-13 ahead of the 2022 World Cup set for Sept. 22 to Oct. 1 in Sydney. The USA will then compete in Olympic qualifying events ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

Doug Feinberg of the Associated Press first reported on Tuesday. USA Basketball set a press conference for Wednesday to announce the 2021-24 head coach position at Target Center in Minneapolis, where the Lynx play, but did not mention Reeve in the notification.

Reeve will take over for South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley, who led the national team to a seventh consecutive gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics over the summer. She announced after the victory she would not lead the team into the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Staley publicly recommended Reeve for the position and celebrated the official announcement afterward.

Staley won three Olympic golds as a player and two as an assistant. She became the first to win gold as a player and head coach and has been with Team USA in some capacity since 1989.

Team USA tabs Cheryl Reeve ahead of Paris

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 16:  Assistant coach Cheryl Reeve of the United States talks with Tina Charles #14 during an exhibition game against the Australia Opals at Michelob ULTRA Arena ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games on July 16, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Australia defeated the United States 70-67.  (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Reeve, 55, has served as an assistant for Team USA since 2014 when it won gold at the 2014 FIBA World Cup and 2016 Olympics. She stayed on for the 2018 World Cup in which the U.S. won gold and for the qualification games for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

In 2019, the team won the USA AmeriCup gold medal with a 6-0 record in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

During the 2019-20 session, Reeve and fellow assistant Dan Hughes co-coached the team during its national training camp and collegiate barnstorming tour while Staley was with her South Carolina team. Team USA went 6-0 against international opponents during FIBA Olympic qualifying and FIBA Pre-Olympic qualifying and were 5-1 against collegiate teams. Its sole loss was to Oregon in November 2019 against now-WNBA stars Sabrina Ionescu, Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard.

Reeve has led the Lynx franchise since 2010, winning four titles in seven years with the likes of Maya Moore, Rebekkah Brunson, Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles. She's currently building the Lynx roster around former Rookie of the Year Napheesa Collier to get back to the top.

Lynx players were in attendance for the announcement, including Fowles, Rennia Davis, Rachel Banham and Layshia Clarendon. Whalen and Brunson, an assistant with the Lynx, were also there.

She's a three-time WNBA Coach of the Year and the Executive of the Year in 2019. Her coaching career includes stops at three colleges (La Salle, George Washington, Indiana State) and three WNBA teams (Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Detroit Shock). She won two championships as an assistant with the Shock (2006, 2008).

Team USA in flux

It's a high turnover session for Team USA. Director Carol Callan announced in July she would be stepping down following the Tokyo Olympics. She had held the position since 1995 and said she was leaving to focus on being president of FIBA Americas, a position she was elected to in June 2019. Briana Weiss took over as women's national team director.

The change came amid outcry at Nneka Ogwumike being left off the roster for Tokyo. That decision has created calls of bias toward Connecticut players, and called into question how the committee and organization operates.

The roster will look vastly different come Paris with five-time Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi likely playing their last games. Bird, 41, has said she's done, while Taurasi, 39, teased a return with a "see you in Paris" quip.

Reeve joked during the press conference she was still working on Fowles to keep her for Paris.