Three To Get Ready: USA Women’s Basketball Team Heads to China

By Kecia Bailey: SPM CA Writer
Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The 2008 USA Women's National Team secured first place in the 2008 FIBA Diamond Ball in Haining, China. Photo courtesy USA Basketball.

PALO ALTO, Calif – It was like coming home to where it all began. Although the concourse of Maples Pavilion was dark and silent, if you walked through a set of doors and down a flight of stairs – the sounds of a team in training were audible as the 2008 U.S. Women's Senior National Team conducted a brief three-day training camp to get ready for the Beijing Olympics.

Thirteen years ago the U.S. Women's Senior National Team trained in this building on the campus of Stanford University. Their 60-0 record culminated with a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and helped provide the catalyst for the birth of the Women’s National Basketball Association a year later.

Flash forward to last week of July in 2008, as twelve gifted women who are now employed by that very league convened again at Stanford to get ready to try to win their country’s fourth-straight gold medal. Lisa Leslie, heading back to the Olympics for what will be her fourth and final time, stood under a basket after practice and looked around the Maples gym at her 2008 teammates in amazement.

“There’s a lot of talent right here, every name that you can name on the back of these jerseys, Bird, Thompson...it’s just great … on paper.” she observed.

“Now we’ve got to do the work.” she added, acknowledging that medals aren’t won on paper.

As one of the youngest members of the 1996 team (only Nikki McCray and Rebecca Lobo were younger) Leslie reminisced as Maples seemingly also simultaneously became the site of a reunion of members of the Atlanta team. Dawn Staley, who was a point guard for the 1996 team, serves as an assistant coach for the 2008 team. Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain were on hand the first night of practice. Jennifer Azzi, now a member of the selection committee assembling the 2008 squad, watched this year’s team from the sidelines along with 1996 head coach Tara VanDerveer whose home gym hosted USA Women's Basketball again.

“I played with Dawn Staley since I was 16 years old. I played with Teresa Edwards for two Olympics and Katrina in one … I learned so much from them and that whole tour we had.” Leslie said with a smile. “So I just feel really honored and humbled by the fact that I had the opportunity to play with them and now I’m the veteran that’s the leader who has taken on the role that they had with me for so many years. But I’m still over on the side asking “T, tell me what you think, what do I need to do?” So at the same time I still feel like that 16 year-old when I began.”

As the most experienced Olympian, (the team sports five members making their first Olympic appearance) Leslie talked about her role in guiding her teammates to their ultimate golden prize as a simple one.

“Make sure we’re bringing it, and checking people if they’re not. Not taking any moment for granted and not being denied … that’s my motto for this team, to not be denied every single day. We have to not be denied at practice and that means getting after it and getting after each other. And then when we go into competition, not being denied that win every single time we step out on the floor.”

Newcomer Seimone Augustus said she has found that leadership very helpful,

“The veterans have done a great job with the younger players just helping us understand what we need to do and how we need to do it in order to be effective on the court. “

Kara Lawson, also making her first Olympic appearance, added. “We have six veterans who have played in the Olympics before and one of the things Coach Donovan told us as first time Olympians was to make sure we listened to the veterans. We try to draw on their experience of being gold medalists and having a lot of success at the Olympics.” Lawson said. “Everyone’s focused on sacrificing for the team and coming in with a hungry mindset to keep getting better every day.”

That hunger stems not only from the string of consecutive gold medals that the 2008 squad will be out to extend, but also from the sting of finishing in the 2006 FIBA World Championships in Brazil with a bronze medal -- after a 75-68 loss to Russia in the semi-finals. Still, Team USA lands in China ranked as the number one women’s basketball team in the world according to FIBA. Members of the team are aware that coming home with gold isn’t going to be easy, and all understand the challenges that await them. but they also believe they will be able to meet them.

Looking forward to the other gold medal contenders, center Sylvia Fowles said, “I think Australia or Russia will be our biggest challenge because we’ve faced them in the past and they’ve given us a run for our money. But now we’ve got the puzzle and the pieces we need to connect and this is the one that counts.”

Lawson said, talking about how the pieces will fit in the puzzle. “The biggest focus has been on our defense - trying to get our defensive chemistry. We really want to put a lot of pressure on other teams by trying to force a lot of turnovers and getting out in transition and running. We feel that with our depth and our athleticism, if we can get that going on the defensive end, we can have a lot of success in the Olympics.”

Augustus considered the mental challenge the team will face getting to the medal rounds. “Pool play is difficult, you’re going to win some games by 20 and you’re going to win some games by two. Who knows what the outcome’s going to be? But no matter what, we have to stay focused and never get lax, because every team is a threat once we get over there. Every team is good – they wouldn’t be in the Olympics if they weren’t pretty good. So we just need to stay focused and have a dominating mindset.”

A collection of talent in the paint won’t hurt either. The complement of post players on the USA roster impressed forward Tina Thompson. With players like DeLisha Milton-Jones, Candace Parker, Leslie and Fowles joining her in the front court, Thompson thinks the mix of skills will be a key for the team as it faces other talented squads in China.

“I think that in a lot of cases that where we have an advantage is in depth and our versatility in the post," Thompson said. "Of course, I’m very, very, very, very, very biased in saying that we’re absolutely the best, but I think so. The Olympics probably has in a group the top 10 post players in the world, and we have what -- five of them? I am very happy to be on the court with any one of those ladies, because you know what you’re getting all day, every day.”

Talent and chemistry are definitely important but when seeking a goal, some experts suggest that visualization of the end-result can also be helpful in attaining it. If that’s true, then Kara Lawson has a good head start. When asked what she looks forward to the most in making the trek to Beijing, Lawson offered a glimpse of the video she has playing in her mind.

“Wining a gold medal is what I look forward to the most," she said. "Hearing the National Anthem, and standing up there with my teammates and just soaking in the moment -- and enjoying it with my family. That’s what I look forward to the most.”

With camp now closed and the team finishing its pre-Olympic tune-up in China, their task now becomes making their visualizations and their talent evaluations on paper turn to gold on the court.

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