STANFORD, Calif. – Brittany McPhee and the USA U23 National Team went undefeated and won the inaugural U24 Four Nations Tournament at Katayanagi Arena in Tokyo.
McPhee averaged 9.3 points on 61.1 percent shooting (11-of-18) and 4.0 rebounds in 15.7 minutes per game and the United States swept its three games against Australia, Canada and Japan over the last four days. She tied for 12th at the event in both scoring and rebounding, was fourth in field goal percentage, tied for third in free throw percentage (.857) and tied for the overall lead averaging one block per game.
The closest game for the U.S. came in its opener against Australia on Aug. 12, a 78-60 victory. McPhee scored six points on 3-of-5 shooting and had one block and one steal in her USA Basketball debut. On Aug. 13, the rising Stanford senior played a flawless 18 minutes against Canada, scoring 15 points on a perfect 7-of-7 shooting to go along with two assists, two steals, one block and no turnovers in a 107-61 win. The United States closed out the tournament with a 103-71 victory over Japan on Aug. 15 in which McPhee had seven points and a single-game tournament high 10 rebounds.
The 2017 U24 Four Nations Tournament provided meaningful competition and development opportunities. The USA's participation in the tournament was intended to help further develop the USA Basketball athlete pipeline and to help prepare athletes for possible future participation in the USA Basketball Women's National Team pool.
McPhee made the 12-person roster from a group of 36 hopefuls following a week of camp at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Athletes eligible were U.S. citizens, 23 years old or younger and were freshmen, sophomores or juniors during the 2016-17 collegiate season.
McPhee had a breakout junior year for the Cardinal in 2016-17 and was named All-Pac-12 following a season in which she started 37 games and averaged 13.3 points and 4.9 rebounds. The versatile guard led Stanford in scoring in the NCAA Tournament at 16.8 points per game and made 44.4 percent of her 3-pointers in the Cardinal's Final Four run.
The Pac-12's second-most improved scorer year-over-year, McPhee upped her scoring over her sophomore season by 6.8 points per game. Twenty-five of her 35 career games scoring in double figures came this past season as did seven of her nine career 20-point efforts.
McPhee was named to the Lexington Region All-Tournament team after some superb postseason performances. She scored 16 of her game-high 21 in the first half of a second-round win over Kansas State and also had seven rebounds, five assists and a career-high five made 3-pointers. In Stanford's massive comeback against Notre Dame in the Elite Eight, McPhee scored 19 of her game-high 27 in the second half to go along with five rebounds, four assists, two blocks and another five made 3-pointers.
A human biology major with a 3.73 GPA, McPhee was honored by the NCAA as this year's women's basketball Elite 90 award winner, given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA's 90 championships.
She was the third current member of the Stanford roster to play internationally this summer. Rising junior Alanna Smith won silver with Australia's senior national team at the FIBA Asia Cup in Bangalore, India and averaged 10.8 points on 58.3 percent shooting and 5.3 rebounds. Incoming freshman Alyssa Jerome averaged 7.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 assists when she captained Canada to a bronze medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup in Udine and Cividale del Friuli, Italy.
