{"id":840021,"date":"2026-09-08T00:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T00:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840021\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T00:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T00:26:11","slug":"stewart-and-collier-spark-a-us-bounce-back-routing-the-czech-republic-105-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/840021\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewart and Collier spark a US bounce back, routing the Czech Republic 105-64"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Breanna Stewart<\/a> and Napheesa Collier<\/a> set the tone early to help the U.S. bounce back from its worst offensive performance in 50 years.<\/p>\n

Stewart had 11 of her 19 points in the first quarter and Collier scored seven of her 12 in the second as the Americans routed the Czech Republic 105-64 on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to be better. I just wanted to really lead by example,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cNot only just from stats, but just the way that I was communicating to my teammates. This is a big moment for all of us and we need to take full advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart was coming off the worst shooting game in her stellar career for USA Basketball. She missed her first eight shots against Italy<\/a> on Sunday before hitting the go-ahead basket in the 55-52 gritty win on Sunday.<\/p>\n

She got going early against the Czechs and finished 8 of 11 from the field to along with seven rebounds and six assists while playing only 17 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew the ball had to go in the basket for me, like come on,\u201d Stewart said with a smile. \u201cI was trying to get out early, rebound and run and put pressure on the rim. I thought that overall as a team, we did a really good job of seeing the lanes that we weren\u2019t running last night and running them today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Americans won their 33rd in a row in the tournament, going back to a semifinal loss to Russia<\/a> in the 2006 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Next up for the U.S. is the quarterfinal round on Thursday. They\u2019ll face the winner of the Hungary<\/a> vs. Japan<\/a> game which takes place Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Stewart had 11 points in the first 10 minutes as the U.S. jumped out to a 29-15 lead. The Americans had only 30 points in the first half against Italy. They kept it going in the second quarter behind Collier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t happy with our performance yesterday, really on either side,\u201d Collier said. \u201cSo just coming with the mindset that we\u2019re going to play as hard as we can, we\u2019re going to be aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. coach Kara Lawson<\/a> said she just needed to remind her two veterans how good they are between the two games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re both complete players and there\u2019s no doubt when they\u2019re playing at a really high level our team clicks and so it was it was great to see them both come out with great aggression with great confidence. Confident in who they are and what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Americans extended the advantage to 57-33 at the half. They weren\u2019t challenged in the second half by the Czechs as the lead ballooned to more than 40 points.<\/p>\n

Stewart finished short of her World Cup career-high of 23 points set against China in 2018. <\/p>\n

The Czech Republic finished winless in pool play. The Czechs were playing in their first World Cup since 2014. They won the silver medal when they hosted the event in 2010.<\/p>\n

In other games on Monday, China beat Italy; Germany<\/a> topped Mali<\/a>; Belgium<\/a> beat Australia<\/a>; Puerto Rico<\/a> edged Turkey; France<\/a> routed Nigeria<\/a>; Spain<\/a> beat Japan and Hungary slipped past Korea.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full WNBA<\/a> coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier set the tone early to help the U.S. bounce back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1246,15106,435,594,6797,9174,247998,6801,3471,105153,175615,3250,5998,5898,1206,3662,99,434,13016],"class_list":["post-840021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-australia","tag-belgium","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-hungary","tag-international-friendlies","tag-italy","tag-japan","tag-kara-lawson","tag-mali","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-nigeria","tag-puerto-rico","tag-russia","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}