USC's Kennedy Smith and Team USA win AmeriCup gold with victory over Brazil

This is a win from Team USA to be proud of. Armed with college players, such as USC's Kennedy Smith and Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, the coach Kara Lawson side proved able to meet each challenge they encountered during the tournament. Their opponent during the 2025 AmeriCup final was a veteran Brazil team that had a corps that had been together for a long time.

En route to the 92-84 victory in the final on Sunday, the experience and overall ability of the Brazilians proved to be far from an easy task to overcome. In a physical and back-and-forth affair, however, Team USA showed that they can make the needed plays down the stretch and ended up outpacing the South Americans in Chile to secure gold.

While the Americans ended up winning by eight, Brazil held a lead for much of the contest, and it took a couple of defensive sparks and key buckets, as well as Brazilian frontcourt foul trouble, to ultimately help spark the gold medal-winning performance during the final game of the AmeriCup competition.

The fact that this collective of exclusive college players found a way to take the lead and then hold off Brazil in the fourth speaks exceedingly well to what an excellent job coach Lawson did in preparing this roster for the competition.

Fantastic experience for USC guard

Smith showed why she was included on the team throughout the tournament. The USC guard could always be seen making high-level, impactful plays on the court, even if the stat sheet did not always directly show her efforts.

Still, during the final possessions, coach Lawson turned to Smith. In terms of being able to fight over screens and finding the extra effort needed to contest after getting picked, her presence was needed, and the Trojan guard is who the Team USA head coach turned to.

For Smith, watching her summer basketball activity end in the playing of the national anthem is something that she will be able to cherish for the rest of her life.