By Jay Sorgi • Posted July 2, 2025

It’s easy to find God in victories. It’s not as readily apparent in setbacks.

Broomall’s Maggie Doogan may not have made the USA Basketball AmeriCup Team after four days of trials against some of the best players in women’s college basketball.

Yet, the Cardinal O’Hara High School graduate and University of Richmond senior is seeing blessings from simply getting the chance to compete for a slot on Team USA in the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup tournament in Santiago, Chile.

It’s regarded as the international women’s basketball championship of the Western hemisphere and a major pre-Olympic tournament.

“It was a really cool thing to be able to say that I was a part of,” Doogan said of her four-day tryout from June 16-19 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, home of the United States Olympic Training Center.

“I definitely learned a lot from everybody who was there. They’re all incredible players, so it was a really cool experience.”

Six of the 12 team members were named Associated Press First-Team, Second-Team, or Third-Team All-Americans in college basketball this past season.

“They were all super nice, helped me out to get acclimated to the Team USA culture because a lot of them had already been there before.”

Doogan earned the 2025 Atlantic 10 Conference Player of the Year at Richmond.

Prior to her collegiate success she was named a PIAA 5A First-Team All-State and two-time All-Catholic First-Team standout at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield. She led the Lions to two PIAA 5A state championships and the 2022 PCL title.

Doogan showed that she had a place amidst players well on their way to the WNBA.

“Maggie was the only mid-major player there, not playing in an NCAA Power Four conference. For her name to just be out there and the respect she earned, it’s totally deserved. We still shake our heads a little bit about it, but it’s very cool,” said Chrissie Doogan, Maggie’s mom who is also the head coach and athletic director at Cardinal O’Hara.

“It’s a testament to her work ethic. That work ethic certainly had to have been on display at these tryouts.”

Maggie’s work ethic and game also showcased themselves in front of the head coach of the gold medal-winning 2024 USA Olympic Women’s Basketball Team, Duke head coach Kara Lawson.

“She’s very inspirational, very passionate about the game, and she wants us to get better,” said Maggie.

“Her main goal throughout these trials was obviously to get the team ready for Chile, but I think she just wanted all of us, even if we didn’t make the team, to soak up as much knowledge as we possibly could.”

Doogan said she learned what she needs to improve upon, such as becoming “stronger, quicker, continue to work on ball handling, things like that.”

The experience also taught her to “soak up every opportunity,” she said.

Might she get the chance to make the team in the future?

“Never say never, but honestly, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, and just to be able to say that I was there and trained with some of the best athletes in the world,” she said.

Dreams like these seemed far away from when she first simply wanted to play for her mom’s alma mater.
The woman who coached Maggie at O’Hara could not help being what she’s always been, Maggie’s “biggest fan,” as they exchanged messages during those four days of the trials.

“I was getting the updates in between the sessions, and we just kept telling her to go prove that you belong, take whatever experience you can get out of this, and see what you can learn from it,” Chrissie Doogan said.

“Having the experience of coaching Maggie all through her high school career, it was hard not for her to become my best friend. My siblings make fun of me all the time. They’re like, ‘You’re so sad when Maggie’s away.’ If Richmond played 35 games last year, she probably had fans at maybe 30 of them between me, my parents, my mother-in-law, my sisters, you know. When you watch Maggie play, I feel like you get the sense that she loves what she’s doing.”

It hasn’t been hard for Maggie to find blessing amidst the disappointment of not making the team, with the faith her family and Cardinal O’Hara infused within her.

She admits she would tear up sometimes during school Masses because of “how much I loved it, how much I felt at home in that auditorium,” she said. “It really just opened my eyes to how much better my faith could be. I’ve tried to carry that through with me throughout college.”

“I’m extremely blessed to have a good relationship with God, and for him to keep guiding not only my career, but just my life in general. And I am eternally grateful for just having genuine people who love me in my corner.”

The 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles or the 2032 games in Brisbane, Australia could be around the corner for Maggie, but she knows who’ll be there the whole way.

“God is good,” she said, “and God is the reason why we’re all here.”