The USA Basketball Women's National Team is synonymous with dominance. By a wide margin, the team is the most successful in international women's basketball, having won nine out of the eleven Olympic tournaments it has entered. The team has also won nine of the last twelve World Cups (including the last four), and eleven titles overall. The team is currently ranked first in the FIBA World Rankings and since the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the U.S. women’s team has won every tournament and holds the number one spot in FIBA’s World Rankings.

If the women’s team claims another gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, they will break the American men’s basketball team record for most consecutive gold medals; the men won seven straight from 1936-68. They would also hold the longest streak for gold medals in a traditional team sport in Olympic history.

During a WNBA media session, BET.com caught up with several of the national team members and talked about being on the cusp of making Olympic history.

Coach Cheryl Reeve, the national team’s head coach, shared that the national team’s close victory against Belgium in the Olympic qualifying tournament is the kind of challenge she expects the US will encounter during the Olympics.

“That's what we anticipated as coaches. And I also thought that was what we needed. We need adversity. I think to be able to reach your greatest heights you have to experience adversity,” Reeve said. “And so a game like that in an environment like that. I think that will prove to be a valuable, valuable experience for us as we continue to move forward toward being in Paris and competing for a gold medal.”

A’Ja Wilson, two-time WNBA MVP forward of the Las Vegas Aces shared how the team's chemistry is crucial to their success.

“It's something that we just kind of take on as we prepare for the Olympics. But once we kind of get on that flight to London, I feel like that's when the chemistry will really start to seep in,” Wilson said. “Because we compete against each other all the time on the court, we probably know everyone’s game and where they want to go… But off the court, I feel like we’ll gel in our locker room because of just the type of character people that we have.”

“We know how to get the best out of people and we have something that we're trying to go for which is to win eight straight gold medals,” she continued. “It’s going to take all of us to do that.”

The Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi, who’s looking to win her sixth gold medal also spoke of their excitement for Paris and the momentum of women’s basketball.

“We’re going to do what we need to do. We're gonna bring energy, on and off the court,” Griner laughed. “But on the court, we may not always have the best shooting night in but you can always rely on defense. That’s one thing that Coach talked about is our ability to play with pressure, defend, really cause havoc out there. I think that we rely on that and physicality as well.”

“We all love this game so much. Everyone's path here has been different and I've been lucky enough to be around it for 20 years now. There's always these moments when it comes to sports that you have to take advantage of and I think we're at that point in the WNBA and women's sports,” Taurasi said. “With the great players that we have now, we have made sure we respect the generation that came even before me. They were pioneers and trailblazers, who sacrificed every single day without a lot of things that we get to take advantage of.”

Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty gave insight into how they’re making the transition from mid-season WNBA ball to international competition.

“I'm definitely competitive. I think that we're trying to get ready for the Olympics and this is an amazing weekend. It's been amazing like hospitality by Phoenix and everything but we have to be locked in because our time together is so short,” Stewart said. 

“I think we're all taking it kind of one step at a time. But I think understanding as we've played them, you know, we understand what they're capable of doing. And we just gotta control what we can and be the best that we can be every single day,” Ionescu said. “Like Stewie said, all these days of practice of games are really important for us to continue to build chemistry and go out and be the best team that we know we can be.”

Aces stars Jackie Young, Kelsey Plum, and Chelsea Gray explained why defense is critical to the team’s goal of bringing home the gold.

“It's about defense. So we’ll try to execute and bring the ball pressure,” Young said. “Having a defensive mindset is key because we know that everybody can score the ball. We have to take care of business on the defensive end.”

“I think the 12 players on the roster are extremely qualified in terms of experience in big games and being extremely competitive. We're focused on us, we know we can control what's in our locker room and what Coach Cherryl wants from us offensively and defensively,” Plum added. “I don't think we can get too concerned about anyone else because it's really about what we can control. That’s the mentality of all our teammates but gold is the standard.”

“Although we have to build chemistry in such a short period of time, I'm excited as heck to be able to share this experience with my Aces teammates. They deserve it,” Gray said.  “They worked their butts off to be here. So I'm excited for that part. But as far as building chemistry, it's going to have to come with all 12 of us in a short period of time."

Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx and Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun believe that the USA will have no issue with the quick turnaround to compete in the Paris Games and how the WNBA has exploded in popularity this season.

“We play in our W teams during the season, and then we go overseas and play. But we’ll be specifically focused on USA basketball and the next game. It's not even who we're playing next week. It's the very next game,” Collier said. “I think it comes pretty naturally. We have to be focused on your W season when you're playing and then we do that same thing with Team USA. We have camps, like twice a year where we have to come and lock in so it comes naturally for us.”

“I think women's basketball is really hot right now. There’s a lot of attention around our game. Nothing changes for us whether we’re playing for Team USA or our W team,” Thomas added. “I think we're going out there to show people what we're all about.”