North Cook News

Lincolnwood, Illinois, native and Seattle Storm star guard Jewell Loyd is feeling right at home at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“For me being a first-timer, I’m just enjoying the experience,” Loyd told Yahoo Sports. “The opening ceremony was very unique. It was nice to get outside of the hotel and be with other athletes and go through the whole process. I think we’re ready to play games, I think we’re ready to go.”

With the U.S. women’s team shooting for a seventh consecutive gold medal, Loyd and company are zeroed in on maintaining the status quo. While being in a foreign country in the middle of a worldwide pandemic can be challenging, Loyd said being there with Storm teammate Breanna Stewart has helped take off some of the edge.

The two stars' relationship goes all the way back to when they were just teenagers competing on the USA Basketball under-17 team. They were reunited in Seattle when the Storm made both of them No. 1 overall picks in back-to-back WNBA drafts starting 2015.

Since then, they’ve combined to earn two league titles and six All-Star game appearances. Now with a team full of stars as their teammates, Loyd said she’s definitely counting on that same kind of success in Tokyo.

“The biggest thing for us is to continue to communicate,” she said. “It’s different coming from different WNBA teams with different terminology. Just getting on the same page with each other has been the biggest thing. We’ve just been working on communicating, talking, and getting to know each other.”

Loyd is hoping to lead by example, quickly doing all she can to adjust to a different role on a squad that won its first two outings by an average of 13 points.

“The mentality for me is to keep it simple and stay confident,” she said.

Now 27, Loyd spends part of her time warning her younger teammates of what could happen if they make the mistakes of taking things for granted.

Back in 2016, Loyd was on a select team that came within four points of upsetting Team USA in an exhibition in Los Angeles. It was the closest margin of victory for the U.S. women’s national team in history.

“For us, it’s also just making sure we know what we’re doing and we’re feeling good about how we’re playing on both ends of the floor,” Loyd added.

Along with Loyd and Stewart, the Tokyo Olympics roster also includes Phoenix’s Diana Taurasi, Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins-Smith; Minnesota’s Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier; Washington’s Tina Charles and Ariel Atkins; and Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson and Chelsea Gray.