A’ja Wilson, former teammate Kelsey Plum to miss the FIBA Women’s World Cup

A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum volition miss the FIBA Women’s World Cup for wellness reasons and volition beryllium replaced by Washington teammates Kiki Iriafen and Sonia Citron, USA Basketball announced Monday.

Wilson, the four-time WNBA MVP, has shouldered rather a workload successful the archetypal portion of the play for the Las Vegas Aces and needed a interruption to remainder and get acceptable for the playoffs. She was voted the astir outstanding subordinate of the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2022 World Cup. She volition beryllium sorely missed by the United States.

Plum has been dealing with a calf wounded for astir of the WNBA play and it inactive hasn’t 100% healed. She was a catalyst successful the Paris Games gold-medal contention against France and sparked the Americans to the one-point victory.

Iriafen and Citron were some portion of U.S. camps this past winter. Iriafen played connected the American squad that went to Puerto Rico and won the World Cup qualifier. Citron had to miss that tourney due to the fact that of an injury, truthful she’ll beryllium making her nationalist squad debut successful Germany.

The Americans person won each World Cup since finishing with the bronze medal successful 2006. That World Cup saw American prima Lisa Leslie propulsion retired astatine the past infinitesimal due to the fact that of a car mishap that her uncle was in. Without her, the U.S. fell to Russia successful the semifinals.

Without the 2 seasoned players, the U.S. volition trust adjacent much heavy connected its younker movement. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers volition marque their World Cup debut. The young stars volition beryllium joined by Olympic medalists Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Kahleah Copper.

Rhyne Howard and Aliyah Boston volition besides beryllium making their World Cup debuts to circular retired the team.

The U.S. opens against China connected Friday. The Chinese squad has a immense beforehand enactment with 7-foot-3 Zhang Ziyu, 6-10 Han Xu and 6-7 Li Yueru. The 2 teams played for the World Cup rubric successful 2022 successful Australia.