USA – Team USA continues their training sessions…

NEW YORK (FIBA Americas Championship for Women) - After an initial two-week camp in Italy last spring, members of the 2007-08 USA Basketball Women's Senior National Team stepped onto the court on Friday night to continue preparing for the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship and their ultimate goal: the 2008 Olympic Games.

Due to injuries, the WNBA Finals, weddings and a baby the 27-member roster may have been depleted, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a who's who of the basketball world moving up and down the court at John Jay College.
There was a pair of Olympic gold medalists in Sue Bird and DeLisha Milton-Jones, five members of the 2006 USA World Championship Team in Seimone Augustus, Alana Beard, Bird, Milton-Jones and Candace Parker. Five WNBA All-Stars, including Augustus, Beard, Bird, Asjha Jones and Milton-Jones listed among the group; while top 2008 collegiate Player of the Year candidates Sylvia Fowles, Courtney Paris, Candace Parker and Candice Wiggins also took to the court. The list was further bolstered on Sunday with the arrival of 2007 All-Star Rebekkah Brunson. And let's not forget that Kara Lawson owns a WNBA title.

The gym was replete with talent, no doubt about it. It was especially evident when practice started – someone forgot to tell the players they were going through drills. They played tough as nails, as if every play was the final play in a gold medal game, especially Little Miss Sunshine aka D-Nasty.

Once the baby on USA squads, wherein now are feature future hall-of-famers Teresa Edwards, Lisa Leslie, and Dawn Staley, DeLisha, whose nicknames couldn't be more polar opposite, is now the elder stateswoman among this group of players. She joined her first USA Basketball Senior National Team in 1997, just a few months after finishing up her collegiate career at the University of Florida. Competing alongside Olympic veterans Ruthie Bolton and Venus Lacey, also joining her on that squad were Olympic and World champs-to-be Katie Smith, Tina Thompson and Kara Wolters. While she saw limited minutes off the bench, DeLisha impressed USA Basketball head coach Nell Fortner enough to earn a spot on the 1998 USA World Championship Team and she's been a stalwart on USA national teams ever since.
USA Basketball.com sat down to talk with the two-time World Championship gold medalist and 2000 Olympian following the team's third practice.

On the USA's training camp after three days:

We're definitely seeing an improvement from day to day. We have a lot of young players here and me being the lonely veteran here, it's quite interesting to me. Because sometimes you're so use to being the younger player that you're not as vocal as you probably need to be. And now when I look around, I think to myself ‘it's real quiet in here.' I look to myself as being that person that needs to communicate to everyone, whether it's as a group or on an individual basis. All the girls that are here are very receptive to everything that's been going on. We're learning a lot in a short period of time, but everybody's responding well...One thing I am glad to see, I think the future of USA Basketball is going to be strong. We have some great young talent that's up and coming now and they can make an immediate impact.

On the college players in camp:

If they continue to perfect their craft, the rest of the world is going to have a hard time keeping up with us because they're big, they're athletic, they're playing above the rim. It's amazing when you see some of the rebounds that they pull down. They're snagging it above the rim, coming back down and finishing above the rim. That's amazing to see, that type of athleticism in your fours and your fives...Candice Wiggins, an up-and-coming talent from Stanford, you can tell she has a good head on her shoulders. She knows the game well.

Have some of the younger players asked you for some advice on the USA National Team?

They'll come to me on the sidelines and ask me about things offensively, whether it's the new plays we're learning, their positioning, what they need to look for, reads they need to make and I find that it tickles me sometimes when they come to me, because I'm like, ‘dang! They’re looking up to me!' Before that use to be me, going to Lisa (Leslie), going to Dawn (Staley) or Teresa (Edwards) saying, ‘help me with this or help me with that.' But now I have people like Jessica Davenport coming up to me saying ‘can you please help me on my post moves, making fakes,' this and that. Candace Parker coming to me, asking how to play defense on the wings, I'm glad to see that they're willing to learn and it pleases me to know that they can come to me for advice.

Who has impressed you most after the first few days?

You know who I'm impressed with? I'm impressed with Sylvia Fowles. You have a chance to watch her on TV, but to see how massive she is. She takes up a lot of space on the court and so athletic to be so big...her physique is like ‘wow!' She doesn't look like a young player, she looks like a grown woman ... I'm impressed with her reaction time off the floor, her strength, her quickness, her agility. She's just fun to watch for me.

USA Basketball & FIBA Americas