Aliyah Boston was set to make her second senior national team appearance after being the youngest player on the 2024 Olympic Qualifiers team. Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images
March 5, 2026 1:06 pm EST
Team USA made two late injury scratches to its World Cup qualifying roster and will play without forward Aliyah Boston and guard Sonia Citron, who both suffered injuries during Unrivaled play.
Boston and Citron will not make the trip to Miami for training with the senior team, nor will they go to Puerto Rico for the World Cup qualifying tournament. In their places, Team USA has called up forward Monique Billings and guard Rae Burrell.
Boston was set to make her second senior national team appearance after being the youngest player on the 2024 Olympic qualifiers team in Belgium. Citron was slated to make her senior team debut. Billings and Burrell will be making their senior team debuts.
The Team USA frontcourt will be even less experienced than before. Neither four-time WNBA MVP and two-time Olympic gold medalist A’ja Wilson nor two-time WNBA MVP and three-time Olympic gold medalist Breanna Stewart were named to the roster. However, Stewart will be at training camp. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Napheesa Collier, who was injured during the 2025 WNBA Finals and underwent surgery on both of her ankles in January, is still sidelined.
With the additions of Billings and Burrell, six players will make their senior team debuts with the five-on-five team, including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers.
Team USA has pre-tournament training in Miami this weekend before traveling to Puerto Rico, where they will play their first game on March 11 against Senegal. The U.S. will also face Puerto Rico, Italy, New Zealand and Spain throughout the tournament. Team USA has already qualified for the World Cup in Berlin in September, but the qualifiers were required.
The tournament will also mark Kara Lawson’s debut as the senior national team’s head coach. USA Basketball named Lawson the coach for the 2028 Olympic cycle in September 2025 after spending decades with the program as a player and coach. She was a member of the 2008 gold medal Olympic team as a player and coached the inaugural 3×3 team to gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Lawson has coached Team USA’s youth teams on the girls and boys sides and has been an assistant for the senior team since 2022, including during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Mar 5, 2026
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