Going into the tournament, the US Women’s National Basketball Team had won come home from six straight Olympics with a gold medal. In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, they advanced past Nigeria, Japan, Serbia, Spain, and Australia. Their closest game was a nine-point win over Nigeria — outside of that the team handily defeated teams by 15-20 points.

So it was a safe wager going into into the championship game, against a #10 ranked and  severely outsized Japan team, that the live casinos heavily favored the US women’s national team to come out victorious with  their 55th straight Olympic win and seventh consecutive  gold medal.

It was a particularly special win for Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi because they captured five of those seven gold medals with Team USA over the last twenty years.

“It’s been a tremendous journey,” Taurasi told ESPN having competed and won in the Athens, Beijing, London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo Olympics. “It’s 20 years of sacrifice, of putting everything else aside and just wanting to win. It’s never easy playing on this team, the pressure, but this group found a way to win, and I am just happy that this group got to enjoy it.”

Team USA’s size bothers Japan

But it wasn’t just Bird and Taurasi last night, it was the size of the United States’ front court that outdueled Japan’s three-point shooting. The size of Brittany Griner, A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart stifled Japan’s valiant efforts. All three did their damage against the smaller Japanese team. The average height of Japan’s players is only 5-9, and the roster has just two players taller than six feet.

The 6-9 Griner had a game high 30 points on 14-18 shooting, the 6-4 Wilson added 19 points and 7 rebounds while the 6-4 Stewart scored 14 points to go along with 14 rebounds. Together the three interior players also blocked 11 shots.

Japan was led in scoring by team captain’s Maki Takada’s 17 points. With the silver locked up going into the game, the Japanese basketball team knew they made history; bringing home a medal for the first time ever in women’s Olympic hoops. As the host country no less. See the box score here.

Even though they were underdogs going into the tournament, their Head coach Tom Hovasse wasn’t susprised.

“They thought I was crazy,” Hovasse told the Associated Press. “They don’t think I’m crazy anymore. We have a legitimate shot if we continue to play with this level of energy and determination.”

All in all, it was a success for all teams to have competed in this year’s pandemic-plagued Olympics.

“It’s always really difficult to win a gold medal, and this year was even harder,” Bird said. “To deal with all the same adversity everyone else was dealing with and never let it get us down. I’m happy. That’s it.”