France vs USA Odds, Picks & Predictions: Olympic Women's Basketball Gold Medal Game

It will be a double final matchup of France vs. USA, with the Women’s Basketball gold medal game tipping off on Sunday after the men play the day prior. The French women’s team won a thriller in overtime over Belgium to advance, while Team USA thrashed a talented Australian team.

The Americans are once again massive favorites, but France has a few advantages their previous opponents did not.

Read on for my picks and France vs. USA predictions to see why I think a more competitive game will see the American superstars play a larger role than in games past.

France vs USA prediction

My best bet
Breanna Stewart Over 17.5 points (-115)

My analysis

I’ve made back-to-back winning plays shorting Breanna Stewart’s points prop in the previous two games, but I’m flipping the script for the gold medal game against France.

The reason is simple. France is the best team that the USA will have faced in the tournament, and while I still believe they’re the much better team, Cheryl Reeve has been keeping Stewie’s minutes low for this exact moment.

Stewart has been sitting in fourth quarters as a matter of course once point differential was no longer a factor, and it’s seen her scoring plummet. But her efficiency and impact haven’t dipped at all. When she’s been on the floor, she’s dominated.

And no wonder. Stewart is unique among all elite women’s basketball players in that at 6-foot-4 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan she has the measurements of a WNBA center but moves, shoots, and handles the ball like a scoring wing. Rather, she is a scoring wing, the best that there is, and there are vanishingly few players capable of guarding her in the WNBA. 

One of France’s pillars as a team is their strong big defenders. They have a lot of them, including Gabby Williams, and they’ve proven a stiff challenge for the rest of the field. But they can’t hang with Stewart on the perimeter, they won’t get a real contest up when she’s curling around a screen set by A’ja Wilson. 

Stewart is shooting 68.1% on twos in the tournament while taking 9.4 a game. Nobody else comes close to matching her in volume and efficiency. Stewie is coming off two low-scoring games, but France is flat-out better than Australia and Nigeria.

Australia might have more current WNBA players and Nigeria might have better guard defenders, but the fit of France’s best players, their ability to defend the rim and match up with USA’s scoring stars, and the shooting they put at every position is miles better.

For Team USA, there is no tomorrow. I expect them to unleash Stewart with that understanding in mind and to maximize her impact and production on Sunday.

Forever Young

My Jackie Young prop: Over 11.5 points (-115)

In forecasting a more competitive game, I’m also doubling down on my play on Jackie Young. Shifting Young into the starting lineup has been a smashing success for Team USA, and she’s helped mitigate some of the slow starts the Americans were struggling with earlier in the tournament. 

Young’s pace of play, shooting, and cutting have opened up easy shots for herself and her teammates, and I think she’s still being undervalued by oddsmakers here. I’ve seen some books with Young as high as 13.5 points, a jump from 9.5 against Australia. There’s nebulous value on that play, but there are sportsbooks still listing her as low as 11.5 with no juice, which is a clear value bet.

Just as I expect Stewie’s role to expand in a more competitive game, I believe the same of Young. The second half guard minutes for Team USA have not been concerned with maximizing team effectiveness for much of the tournament, but I think more playing time from their best units will be called for, and Young is a part of all those groups.

France’s best defenders are also all bigs, and they don’t have a guard defender who can match Young’s speed, skill, and toughness. 

A more competitive game will dictate increased star player usage. Team USA has largely breezed through the competition in Paris, and that’s meant Young has barely played a meaningful minute beyond the third quarter. I believe she’ll have a role to play throughout the gold medal game.

France vs USA same-game parlay (SGP)

Team USA is used to walking over the competition in women’s basketball, and while I still expect them to come away with another gold medal (and their 61st straight win in Olympic play), France is the best team they’ll have played yet. But more importantly, the things that France does well form a coherent recipe for making this game closer than oddsmakers might suggest.

In short, France wins the math game everywhere but on the glass, and it would only take a few things breaking their way to turn this into a real dogfight.

France is a low turnover team, and the United States plays a conservative defensive scheme with limited on-ball pressure. France forces a lot of steals in turn, leading the tournament at 12 per game. Steals are incredibly valuable because unlike points or rebounds, a certain amount of them are not inevitable in any given game. They’re strictly value-added plays and France has a big advantage over Team USA in terms of forcing turnovers.

Another thing working in France’s favor is outside shooting. While the Americans are slightly more accurate from deep, France takes and makes way more, and they also have shooting at every position with their fours and fives providing quality spacing. France takes more than nine threes more a game than Team USA, and if enough of those drop, it can help mitigate Team USA’s efficiency edge elsewhere. 

And unlike most teams, France has depth and size to defend with. All that makes me like France at +15.5.

Learn how to bet a same-game parlay with these helpful tips and strategies.

France vs USA odds

Odds as of 8-10.

France vs USA game info

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