Looking for Olympic Women's Basketball Single-Game Highs? Not Anymore...
Don't threaten me with a good time
In my researcher era, there was little I found more satisfying than going deep down the rabbit hole in search of an answer. From finding the last time a team from Idaho won a game in the NCAA Tournament to listing every quarterback someone sacked in the NFL so we could run a silly graphic on his birthday, if it involved a stupidly long list I was all in.
Lately I’ve Been Thinking about One Deep Dive in Particular…
I’ve never been good at being bored, and for most of my time at CBS the period after March Madness was VERY boring. So when the company picked up Big3 basketball in 2019 and the project needed a researcher, I jumped at the opportunity.
As a researcher prepping game notes, my job was to use whatever information I could find to help bring a broadcast to life. The problem I ran into on this particular project was that there was literally no information except box scores covering the second of the league’s first two seasons. So before I could start writing notes for Week 1, I had to dump every box score from the 2018 season into a spreadsheet just to see, for instance, who led the league in scoring.
If Only That Was as Deep as This Dive Went…
Aside from the novelty of seeing former NBA stars lace it up again, the most interesting thing about Big3 basketball to me is that it’s played to a target score — first to 50 points wins — which means every game is guaranteed a game-winning shot.
As far as I was concerned, the game-winner was the most unique piece of storytelling information my fledgling database could include. But again, there was a problem — Big3 box scores inexplicably didn’t include game-winning shots as a stat!
It would’ve been easy to move on with my life at that point, but I saw a different solution…I spent the next 2 days at the office scrubbing through every game of the 2018 season on YouTube to find the game-winner.
Fast Forward to Last Weekend
I no longer work for Paramount Global but the Big3 spreadsheet is still being updated every week, game-winning shots and all — and I sure as hell haven’t stopped loving sports or being curious. As Li Yueru dropped 31 to nearly will China to a win on the first day of Olympic Women’s Basketball play, I couldn’t help but wonder: who has the single-game Olympic WBB scoring record?
Surely, I thought, this answer must be out there — but as far as I could tell after looking up and down the internet, it isn’t. What was out there was every box score from 1976-2020 and, well, I still have Excel. So I turned to my couchmate (pictured below), said “at least I don’t have to go on YouTube this time”…and started dumping box scores.
I dumped while A’ja and Stewie cruised past Japan (and then I dumped that box too). I dumped while Pommel Horse Guy became a legend. I dumped while the Yankees ripped homer after homer into the night against my suddenly hapless Phillies.
By Tuesday afternoon, I’d dumped my way to the answer. Olympic WBB single-game highs (and a few other game-level records) on the other side of this picture…
Olympic WBB Single-Game Highs And Assorted Game-Level Records (Through Games of 8/1/24)
Points -- 39, Evladiya Stefanova (BUL) vs South Korea 9/25/88
Rebounds -- 21, twice -- Uljana Semjonova (USSR) vs Bulgaria 7/30/80 AND Yelena Baranova (RUS) vs Australia 7/31/96
Assists -- 18, Rui Machida (JPN) vs France 8/6/21
Steals (no data for 1976) -- 11, Caridad Despaigne (CUB) vs Hungary 7/20/80
Blocks (no data for 1976) -- 9, Polona Dornik (YUG) vs Australia 8/5/84
Turnovers (no data for 1980) -- 11, Iveta Bieliková (TCH) vs USA 7/30/92
TCH was the Olympic tricode for Czechoslovakia
20-Point Games -- 12, Janeth (BRA), 1992-2004
30-Point Games -- 2, 3 players -- Uljana Semonova (USSR), 1976-80 AND Zheng Haixia (CHN), 1988-96 AND Mwadi Mabika (COD), 1996
COD is the Olympic tricode for the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mwadi Mabika is the only woman with multiple 30-pt games in the same Olympics
Double-Doubles -- 13, Lauren Jackson (AUS), 2000-12
Australia’s women’s hoops GOAT has had 6 pts and 5 rebounds in the first 2 games of her first Olympics since 2012
Field Goals Made -- 16, 4 times -- Uljana Semjonova (USSR) vs USA 7/23/76 AND Evladiya Stefanova (BUL) vs South Korea 9/25/88 AND Lisa Leslie (USA) vs Japan 7/31/96 AND Liz Cambage (AUS) vs Japan 8/11/16
Field Goal Attempts -- 28, Mwadi Mabika (COD) vs Cuba 7/29/96
3-pt FG Made (introduced in 1988) -- 8, twice -- Byeon Yeon-Ha (KOR) vs Czech Republic 8/20/04 AND Ryoko Yano (JPN) vs Greece 8/22/04
3-pt FG Attempts (introduced in 1988) -- 16, Byeon Yeon-Ha (KOR) vs Czech Republic 8/20/04
Free Throws Made -- 14, twice -- Sofija Pekić (YUG) vs Hungary 7/24/80 AND Cheryl Miller (USA) vs Australia 7/31/84
Free Throw Attempts -- 20, Sofija Pekić (YUG) vs Bulgaria 7/28/80
Offensive Rebounds (tracked since 1988) -- 10, 3 times -- Caridad Despaigne (CUB) vs Bulgaria 7/24/80 AND Alessandra (BRA) vs South Korea 9/30/00 AND Li Yueru (CHN) vs Spain 7/28/24
Defensive Rebounds (tracked since 1988) -- 18, Yelena Baranova (RUS) vs Australia 7/31/96