The USA has participated every year since the 1955 event, except for 1995, when the game were canceled, due to too few teams committed to play.
Hall of Fame members Jody Conradt, Billie Moore, Cathy Rush, C. Vivian Stringer and Kay Yow were coaches for Pan American teams, while Denise Curry and Pat Summitt participated both as players and coaches.
The players for the 1955 team were drawn primarily from Hanes Hosiery Mills, Wayland College Flying Queens, the Dons, and Dowells Dolls.
[2] While Wayland provided the largest number of players, Hanes provided the captain, Lurlyne Greer Mealhouse, who would score over 18 points per game, more than twice the second highest scorer, and still the third highest scoring average in Pan American history.
In 1975, the Pan Am team included players such as Nancy Lieberman, Lusia Harris, Pat Head, and Ann Meyers, and coach Cathy Rush, each of whom would be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
[7] The 1979 team, with Pat Head now coaching instead of playing, had high hopes to repeat as gold medal winners.
The 1983 team returned to gold medal form, winning all five games in Caracas, Venezuela.
The scoring leaders were Cheryl Miller, Lynette Woodard at 19.8 and 19.0 points per game, respectively.
[8] The 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico began on 14 October, but the women's basketball events commenced on the 21st.
The head coach of the USA team was Ceal Barry, from the University of Colorado, who was assisted by Jennifer Gillom and Debbie Ryan.
Despite being younger than her teammates, Stewart scored 18 points and pulled down 21 rebounds, setting a Pan Am record for a USA player.
Katelan Redmon hit six of her eleven shots to score 16 points for the USA team.
The USA team easily won the rebounding battle 44-28, and shot slightly better than Puerto Rico (38% versus 37%), but had eight more turnovers.
The USA team started strong, scoring the first five points of the game, and extending the lead to 19-5 in the first quarter.
[29] In the final match of the first round, the USA team defeated previously undefeated Mexico 87-58.
Also scoring in double digits were Christine Flores, April Sykes and Emilie Johnson.
Tavelyn James was the leading scorer with 19 points, while Shante Evans and Avery Warley each secured ten rebounds.
Although they were behind by 12 at the end of the third quarter, they mounted a furious comeback and almost pulled out the victory, losing a close game 71–68.
That left Canada as the leading team in their group, and Cuba in second place facing the USA in the semifinal.
Cuba had a final possession to take the lead back but Harper stole the ball to give the close victory to the USA 65–64.
[40][41] The gold-medal game matched up USA against the host team Canada, in a sold out arena dominated by fans in red and white and waving the Canadian flag.
However the Canadians, spurred on by the home crowd cheering, fought back and tied up the game at halftime.