University of Delaware fans will have an opportunity to watch Elena Delle Donne and the 2016 USA Basketball women’s national team live in action this summer during the 2016 USA Basketball Showcase presented by Verizon.

The doubleheader event at UD, which will include four of the top teams in the world, will take place on Wednesday, July 27, at the Bob Carpenter Center.

The USA Basketball women’s national team will host Australia, Canada and France in the four-team, three-stop tournament that begins July 27 at UD and continues with doubleheaders in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at the Webster Bank Arena on July 29 and in New York City at Madison Square Garden on July 31.

From there, the U.S. team will travel to Houston for U.S. Olympic Team processing and a final practice on Aug. 2 prior to traveling to the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At UD on July 27, the world’s second-ranked team, Australia, will take on 2015 FIBA Americas Championship gold medalist Canada in a 5 p.m. tip-off. USA Basketball then will take on 2012 Olympic silver medalist France at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets to the Delaware event can be purchased by visiting ticketmaster.com, or in person at the Bob Carpenter Center Box Office during normal hours of operation, Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Additional ticket information is available online. Few tickets remain.

"On behalf of the entire University of Delaware community, we are honored to be hosting this exciting event,” said Chrissi Rawak, UD director of athletics and recreation services. “It's not every day that you have the world's top women's basketball athletes competing in your backyard, so this will be a wonderful experience for all our fans to see them in action. It will also give us another chance to see Elena Delle Donne live and in person as we give her and Team USA a warm send off to Rio and the Olympics.”

“The Delaware Sport Commission (DSC) is excited about the opportunity to work with USA Basketball again and further strengthen our relationship with the U.S. Olympic Movement,” said Matthew J. Robinson, chairman of the commission and sport management professor at UD who recently served as interim athletic director. “The DSC, UD Athletics, and Gene Delle Donne worked with USA Basketball throughout the spring to get it done. It was a true team effort. As a UD faculty member, hosting such a high profile international event fits with the University’s mission of being a global university. Finally and most importantly, it is great that Elena will have the chance to play before her Delaware family before chasing her dream of winning gold at the Rio Games.”

Five-time defending Olympic gold medalists, the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team features three-time gold medalists and tri-captains Sue Bird (of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm), Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever) and Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury); two-time Olympic gold medalists Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx) and Sylvia Fowles (Minnesota Lynx); and 2012 Olympic gold medalists Tina Charles (New York Liberty), Angel McCoughtry (Atlanta Dream), Maya Moore (Minnesota Lynx) and Lindsay Whalen (Minnesota Lynx).

Competing in their first Olympic Games are Delle Donne (Chicago Sky), Brittney Griner (Phoenix Mercury) and Breanna Stewart (University of Connecticut).

Delle Donne, a Wilmington native who earned All-American honors three times during her illustrious career with the Blue Hens, returns home to the Bob Carpenter Center. The 2015 WNBA Player of the Year, she scored 3,039 career points and led the Blue Hens to the NCAA NCAA Championship Tournament’s Sweet 16 in 2013.

She has returned to the BCC three other times during exhibition games with her WNBA Chicago Sky teammates, including a game this past May. She will become the first University of Delaware student-athlete to compete in the Olympics.

For complete coverage, see BlueHens.com.