Stars at the Sun: Not Exactly an All-Star Game, but Still a Good Show (with Plenty of Star Power)

It wasn't exactly an "All Star Game," in the sense that term has come to be understood over the 14-year history of the WNBA. Instead, The Stars at the Sun was the WNBAs catchy theme for this event, and that was accurate enough. There were certainly plenty of stars on the court, as the current version of the US Senior Women's National Team played a group of WNBA players, selected in part by the fans and in part by coaches, and though the game could scarcely be called "close," much less "exciting," it nonetheless offered great entertainment for the national TV audience and a sold-out crowd of 9.518 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, as well as some educational insights into the future of the US Senior Women's National Team.

In most years, the WNBA All-Star Game, like those of many other sports leagues, has featured the best, or at least some mixture of the best and the most popular, players from the Eastern and Western conferences. And though the West has dominated the series by a 7-2 margin, few of the games have been total routs.

This game amounted to exactly that. Team USA struck the first blood, never trailed, and led by as many as 31 points before Head Coach Geno Auriemma retired his starters and settled for a 99-72 pasting of the WNBA "Also Rans."

You can't blame Brian Agler, who earned the honor of coaching the WNBA squad by dint of guiding his Seattle Storm to the best record in the league at this point in the season. Nor can you fault the WNBA All Stars, who gamely gave it their best from opening tip to closing buzzer despite being decisively overmatched at pretty much every position.

Instead, you have to look at this game for what it was -- one part tryout, one part workout for Team USA in the run up to the 2010 Women's World Championships scheduled to be held in the Czech Republic this autumn from September 23 through October 3.

In 2002 and again in 2006, both basketball World Cup years, the WNBA All-Star Game was held using the customary East-West format. In Olympic years -- 2004 and 2008 -- the All-Star Game was canceled as the National Team undertook to prepare for the Athens and Beijing Olympics. In 2004, however, the league did hold a successful send-off event at Madison Square Garden in which the U.S. Senior Women's National Team took on a team composed of many of the top remaining players in the WNBA.

This year, the league and USA Basketball seized on the 2004 send-off model and opted to transform the annual All-Star game into what was essentially a week-long USA Basketball training camp followed by a scrimmage against "the best of the rest" in the WNBA. That, in turn, led to a selection format that effectively gave the US squad the "pick of the litter" -- at least among the American nationals playing in the league.

In normal All-Star years, fans vote for their top five Eastern Conference and top five Western Conference players, and coaches fill out the balance of the rosters with the best players in each conference -- a system that is calculated, at least over time, to produce more or less evenly balanced rosters. This year, the fans voted for their top 10 favorites, regardless of conference. Any player elected to the All-Star squad who was already on the USA Basketball roster was allocated to Team USA; the others made up the core of the WNBA squad.

To understand just how decided an advantage this was for USA Basketball, one has to recognize that the National Team "roster" right now is much less a "team" than a talent pool. Early this spring, the Selection Committee named two-time Olympic gold medalists Sue Bird (Seattle Storm), Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever), and Diana Taurasi (Phoenix Mercury), plus Beijing Olympic gold medalists Seimone Augustus (Minnesota Lynx), Sylvia Fowles (Chicago Sky), Kara Lawson (Connecticut Sun), Candace Parker (Los Angeles Sparks) and Cappie Pondexter (New York Liberty) to the "team." USA Basketball spokespersons explained that this announcement did not guarantee that any of these players would actually wind up on the 2010 World Championship or 2012 London Olympic teams, but Coach Auriemma indicated that their Olympic experience created a strong presumption in their favor. In effect, he said, they would have to play their way off the team to be excluded. In prior years, this would have been called the "core group" and though USA Basketball doesn't seem to be using that nomenclature this go-round, for the sake of clarity we'll use it here. Note that every one of these players has been an All Star in prior years, many of them several times.

In early March, 12 more of the league's top players were added to the National Team (viz, "talent pool"), bringing the total to 20. (Though that roster may expand yet farther, it will ultimately have to be carved down to a true 12-member team prior to the World Championships). Swin Cash (Seattle Storm), who won Olympic gold in Athens but sat out Beijing, was one of the 12. Also included among the additions were Alana Beard (Washington Mystics), a member of the 2006 World Championship team); Tina Charles (Connecticut Sun); Shameka Christon (Chicago Sky); Candice Dupree (Phoenix Mercury); Lindsey Harding (Washington Mystics); Asjha Jones (Connecticut Sun); Angel McCoughtry (Atlanta Dream); Renee Montgomery (Connecticut Sun); Maya Moore (University of Connecticut); Lindsay Whalen (Minnesota Lynx); and Candice Wiggins (Minnesota Lynx). All of these players had prior USA Basketball experience; all but a handful, among them, Charles, a rookie, and Moore, a collegian, have been WNBA All Stars in recent years.

Sue Bird was the top fan vote getter this year, and so automatically went to Team USA. So did three more of the top five vote-getters: Tamika Catchings, Diana Taurasi, and Swin Cash, as well as Candace Parker, a player in the Top 10. That left the WNBA All Stars with No. 2 vote-getter, Becky Hammon (San Antonio Silver Stars), who has thrown in her lot with Team Russia and is now ineligible to play for the U.S. Team, and Lauren Jackson, a top-10 vote-getter and keystone of the Australian National Team, plus Silver Stars Jayne Appel, Michelle Snow, and Sophia Young. (Appel actually joined Team USA for this week's training camp, along with Ebony Hoffman and Kia Vaughn, all of whom are listed as "hopefuls" -- hopeful, that is, of becoming a part of the team/pool from which the real Team USA will ultimately be drawn. More about, Appel and Snow in a moment.)

Geno Auriemma had to replace the injured Candace Parker who is out for the rest of the season due to shoulder surgery and is not expected to be back for the World Championships. (Pool members Alana Beard and Candice Wiggins are also out for the balance of the WNBA season and are questionable for the Worlds). But he got to round out the USA Basketball Stars at the Sun squad with seven more American players of his chosing, leaving him with a final roster for this event of Bird, Catchings, Taurasi, Cash, Charles, Dupree, Fowles, McCoughtry, Montgomery, Moore and Pondexter.
That gave Team USA a roster that boasted six Olympic gold medalists, eight former WNBA All-Stars, and eight of the top 15 scorers in this season's WNBA.

WNBA coaches then voted for the remaining members of the WNBA All-Star squad out of whoever was left, adding Rebekkah Brunson (Minnesota Lynx), Iziane Castro Marques (Atlanta Dream), Katie Douglas (Indiana Fever), Crystal Langhorne (Washington Mystics), Sancho Lyttle (Atlanta Dream), and Penny Taylor (Phoenix Mercury) to the squad.

Worse, Team WNBA lost both Lauren Jackson (concussion) and Becky Hammon (quadriceps injury), as well as Sancho Lyttle (concussion). They were replaced by Monique Currie (Washington Mystics), and USA Basketball team/pool members Lindsey Harding and Lindsay Whalen, but that still left the WNBA squad with only four players (Castro-Marques, Taylor, Langhorne and Young) who currently rank within the league's top 15 in scoring setting the stage for a complete mismatch.

Asked how much the absence of Jackson, in particular, had hurt the WNBA squad, Agler didn't beat around the bush: "Well, I don't know if it would have changed the outcome," he stated, "because, you know, there was quite a difference in the score. But I mean, you're talking about arguably the best player in the world, impacting both ends of the floor. I've said this multiple times. The reason that she is so valuable is the fact that she really dominates both ends of the floor. She's not just an offensive player. You're talking about somebody that can defend multiple people, that can alter shots and block shots, that can roam the lane and really impact things around the basket."

The WNBA All-Stars also owed at least part of their woes to the loyal fans in San Antonio, who stuffed the ballot boxes in favor of their homegirls, robbing the WNBA squad of an effective post presence by saddling them with Michelle Snow (even now, much too contact averse and slight to deal with real centers) and the perennially injured Jayne Appel (who is averaging10 minutes, 3.3 points, and 2.2 rebounds per game off the bench).

To be fair, with both Fowles and Tina Charles on the USA team, and Lauren Jackson injured, the field of true centers available was pretty limited. The coaches managed to get Crystal Langhorne and Rebekkah Brunson onto the team as alternate post possibilities, but bypassed both Sandrine Grude and Erika DeSouza (the latter an All Star last year). Perhaps foreign players, like Gruda and DeSouza would have preferred to sit this one out anyway, to avoid helping their future US opponents improve. As it was, though four (and a half, if you count Russian adoptee Hammon) were named to the WNBA squad, only two -- Taylor and Castro-Marques took part in the game.

In any event, despite Auriemma's concerns about rebuilding the US post in the wake of the retirement of Lisa Leslie and the injury of Candace Parker, it was plain that neither Snow (eight points, one board), Appel (0 points, two boards, 1 block), Brunson (six points, two boards, two blocks), Langhorne (two points, two boards, two turnovers), nor any combination of them, was any kind of match for the juggernaut that was Sylvia Fowles.

	Photo Caption: WNBA squad rookie Jayne Appel (San Antonio Silver Stars), who is still recovering from the stress fracture and ankle injury that hampered her performance in this year's NCAA Championship Game, was no match for "Big Syl" Fowles, who has struggled with her own share of injuries but seems to be at the top of her game this year. Fowles was all but unstoppable from anywhere in or around the key, posting a record-breaking 23 points and pulling down eight boards in 16 minutes and change on the court; Appel was scoreless and hauled down just two rebounds in nearly the same amount of playing time.
Photo Credit: Full Court/Lee Michaelson

Add to that: Team USA members also had a lot more on the line than the bragging rights typically at stake in an All-Star Game. With the WNBA Playoffs possibly running as late as September 21, this will be the only extended practice time for the team before the World Championships, where the U.S. will be on a mission to retake the gold medal it lost in Brazil in 2006, and the week -- and the game -- have been precious to Geno Auriemma both in team preparation and team selection. His team, some of whom are very much on the bubble in terms of participation in the World Championship squad, took the opportunity seriously.

Diana Taurasi, whose spot on the squad, saving injury, is about as secure as it could possibly be, told reporters: Coach made a point. ... He said, Were going to treat this like a Final Four game, like a WNBA finals game.' To me it wasn't like an All Star Game.

"It is an All Star Game," Taurasi elaborated, "but I think it was a different focus knowing that we don't have many opportunities to practice together, to train together. So every opportunity, we have to use it. I think tonight was a nice step for us going into tomorrow's scrimmage and then later into the Czech Republic in September. So I think we did a pretty good job. Taurasi notched nine points, seven of them in the first quarter, before taking a seat on the bench while Auriemma tried out various combinations of his younger players.

When it was all said and done, reporters asked Auriemma if he thought it might be a good idea to have this kind of All-Star set-up every year, to give the U.S. National Team some exercise. Sure, he agreed. Why not?

Needless to say, the attitude was a bit different at the other end of the court.

There were some things at stake for the other team, said Katie Douglas, who won the three-point shooting segment of the Pre-Game Skills Competition, and also led the WNBA squad with 16 points (but on 6/15 shooting), plus two assists and three steals. Those girls are over there trying to solidify their spot on the USA roster, so its kind of a tough scenario for both people. We have no preparation, were kind of thrown together. I think the players in this room would prefer the East-West (All-Star) scenario because I felt it was extremely lopsided.

The WNBA team's Coach Agler felt that things had gone well on balance, although as expected. We played the best team in the world, he said. This wasn't your typical All Star game. This is a team that was motivated to play from an individual standpoint, because a lot of them are on the bubble to try to make the squad, he explained. And, they're in a preparation mode. And I think our team for the most part, understanding that, came out and competed with them. It got away from us a little bit a couple of times, but we had a group there at the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth, that played pretty well. We did our mission of getting out of here with no injuries and get these players back to their teams.

While making no excuses, Agler, too, seemed to think that the standard East-West match-up would have created a more competitive game, despite the general malaise in the West this season for all but his own Seattle franchise. "I'll tell you what, I think the Western Conference has some great players out there. I think it would have been a very, very good battle. The Eastern Conference, from an individual team standpoint, they happen to be strong at this moment, the halfway point. In an All-Star setting, I think it's hard to say [who would win]."

Be that as it may, there was much to be gleaned from this game about the strengths and weaknesses of Team USA. The first impression one gets from watching the US team is that nobody is likely ever to be able to outscore them.

The second impression is that this is a remarkably young team, and that Coach Geno Auriemma has a lot of work to do. The grande dame of the team is 31-year old Tamika Catchings, followed by 29-year old Sue Bird. The youth of the post players was especially obvious, as was the variety of the coaching they had in college. Sylvia Fowles, for all her physical talent, was clearly not ready for the timing or quality of a number of the passes directed at her. Fowles attributed the fumbled passes to inattention, saying, Sometimes when you get way up in the score, you kind of forget things, and I think I kinda got sidetracked a few times. But we have people like Diana, Sue and Swin to slap me upside the head and say 'Look, you gotta pay attention!' And that means a lot.

Fowles did pay attention, eventually scoring 23 points, breaking the record set last year by Swin Cash (22 points). There were no set-up dunks, or misses, this year; indeed, Fowles didn't miss much of anything, shooting 9-11 from the field, hauling down eight rebounds, and deservedly taking home the MVP award for the game.

The future also bodes well for both USA Basketball and the WNBA. Maya Moore, the only college player in camp, entered the game for the first time to a resounding cheer from the crowd with just under two minutes left to play in the opening half. Moore was the last player off the bench for the US squad, and Auriemma said he had planned it that way -- the others "had earned it," he stated. The nerves showed at first. Moore spent her minutes in the first half deferring to the pros on the court, jacking up misses (she was 0-for-four on her first four attempts, but finished six-for-13 on the day), and looking nothing like the two-time National Player of the Year.

She "played the first half like a college kid," said Auriemma afterward; you couldn't tell her from the rest of the pros on the floor in the second, however.

Moore didn't net her first basket until the 6:32 mark of the third quarter. But she was much more aggressive in the second half and once she got her feet under her, she looked more like herself, finishing with 12 points on six-of-13 shooting, eight rebounds (tying Fowles and Dupree for the game high), five assists, and three steals, but four turnovers.

Photo Caption: (Above, left) UConn Husky Maya Moore, the only non-WNBA player to take the floor for either team, was the last off the bench for Team USA, checking into the contest for the first time with less than two minutes to go in the first quarter. She struggled at first to find both her shot and her confidence, but by the third-quarter, Moore was coming into her own, showing more of the aggressive play and rebounding that have brought her two National Player of the Year awards. (Above, right) Moore lays some razzle-dazzle on WNBA defender Crystal Langhorne (Washington Mystics), taking it to the hole then adding some hang time. Moore finished as one of five U.S. players in double figures, with 12 points, plus eight boards, five assists and three steals (but four turnovers).
Photo Credit: Full Court/Lee Michaelson

Auriemma, and the enthusiastic fans in the sold-out Mohegan Sun Arena, saw many good things from the US squad.

Coming into today, we really didn't know what we were going to see, the coach told the media. We kinda expected some of the older players were going to play pretty well together, he continued. They've been together for a little while, and I thought the fact that we had 32 assists {compared to just 11 assists for the WNBA squad] was just an incredible number. To be able to spread the ball around like that and share it, make the extra pass, all the things that you would want a team to be able to do. Obviously we have a lot of work to do, but for the first time being with this group, we have a good chance to be pretty good. ... [I liked] the way we passed the ball and how smoothly the offense seemed to get generated, Auriemma explained. And it wasn't just one thing: it was baskets in transition, it was baskets inside, it was a little bit of everything.

But the U.S. defense was not on Auriemma's list of positives. During the first quarter, Diana Tauarasi looked great, and the rest of the US team looked defenseless. Tamika Catchings, one of the team's top defenders, spent only five-and-a-half minutes on the floor all game. Asked to detail the negatives from the game, Auriemma said, I didn't like the fact that we gave up a lot of layups early on. We fouled a lot. I don't think we rebounded the ball that good. Our transition defense wasn't that great. So, [we were not good at] all the things that come from spending a lot of time in practice, you know, we'll get that fixed.

Photo Caption: Lindsay Whalen (Minnesota Lynx), a member of the USA Basketball pool, wound up playing for the WNBA All Stars as a replacement for the injured Sancho Lyttle, a reserve selected by the WNBA coaches. Whalen was another star who had a sub-par outing. Though she seemed to be everywhere on the court, she finished with just eight points on dreadful two-for-12 shooting from the floor, and added only two assists. Though the USA's Cappie Pondexter was late on this rotation, it really didn't much matter.

Photo Credit: Full Court/Lee Michaelson

After one quarter, USA led, 29-19. Late in the second period, and continuing into the second half, Team USA really began to click. They put the game out of reach by feeding Fowles in the post and running an effective fast break, and spreading the ball around to all of those great scorers. Penny Taylor (who did not play in the first half) kept things respectable with 12 points in 14 minutes. Katie Douglas played in the first half, but not particularly well; she put up only five points in 11 minutes on two-for-six from the field. But she came alive in the second half, attacking the US team on the drive, and finished registering 15 points, but on just 6-15 shooting. Unfortunately, Douglas, who ran through racks of 30 three-balls in a minute, not once but twice, to win the pre-game sharpshooting competition, appeared spent from beyond the arc, where she went just two-for-eight in the game itself.

Photo Caption: (Above, left) Katie Douglas (Indiana Fever) led the way for the WNBA squad with 15 points, plus two assists and three steals. But despite displaying dead-eyed accuracy on the way to winning the pre-game three-point shooting competition in a runaway (above, right), Douglas had a terrible shooting night, going just two-for-eight from beyond the arc and six-for-15 (40 percent) from the field.
Photo Credits: Full Court Press/Lee Michaelson

When the third period ended with Team USA up by 31, Auriemma pulled most of his starters, presumably to get a look at those less guaranteed of making the final team: Swin Cash, Candice Dupree, Renee Montgomery, and Angel McCoughtry. One thing the U.S. needs is a back-up point guard for Sue Bird, preferably one with stronger defensive skills. At times, Auriemma seemed to have Cappie Pondexter running the point, and later in the half, Auriemma had McCoughtry and Moore sharing point guard duties, supported by Tina Charles, Dupree, and Cash. That group actually outscored the WNBA team by five points during their stint together. Dupree and Cash, in particular, acquitted themselves well. Dupree notched 13 points and hauled down eight boards. Cash showed that she may belong, scoring both inside and out on nice feeds from Moore. and posting 13 points, to which she added three assists and a steal. McCoughtry joined Fowles, Cash, Dupree and Moore in double figures with 11 points, to which she added three assists and three steals.

	Photo Caption: Candice Dupree (Phoenix Mercury) helped make her case for a spot on the U.S. World Championship team with 13 points, two assists, and an eight-board contribution to Team USA's rebounding effort. Here, Dupree attracts plenty of attention from WNBA defenders Sophia Young (San Antonio Silver Stars) and Rebekkah Brunson (Minnesota Lynx).
Photo Credit: Full Court/Lee Michaelson

	Photo Caption: Swin Cash (Seattle Storm) was another who impressed, putting up 13 points on 60 percent shooting from the field. She also passed out three assists. Left: Cash takes her only three-point attempt of the day -- and sinks it.
Photo Credit: Full Court/Lee Michaelson

Charles put up just six points (in 14 minutes), but added five rebounds and swatted down two blocked shots. Montgomery had a less impressive outing. She was the only Team USA player who failed to score, though she did dish out three assists (to just one turnover) and grabbed a steal in her 14 minutes on the floor.

As the game closed out, things relaxed a bit and began to look a little more like an All-Star game: Tina Charles attempted a three and an 18-foot two (both unsuccessful) much to the amusement of her teammates; Auriemma had apparently promised Charles, who never attempted a trey while in college, $50 if she could make one, and Taurasi had doubled his offer. (For some reason, the final box reflected neither attempt.) The officials delayed the game in the final fractional seconds, first calling a personal foul on Cash, then issuing a delay of game warning against Team USA for attempting to deflect the in-bounds pass.

The final score was 99-72, the 27-point margin the largest in WNBA All-Star history (the previous record having been set in 2005, when the West beat the East, 122-99).

Fowles, predictably, was named MVP of the game, with her 23 points and eight boards in just seventeen minutes of play. When she grasps how well her teammates pass, and learns to hold onto those passes, she will be a dominant force for USA Basketball for years to come. Fowles acknowledged that filling the shoes left by the retirement of four-time Olympic gold-medalist Lisa Leslie was "a big role that I have to take on," but noted, "At the same time, I played under Lisa and Tina for a year [and got] to learn a couple things. When you got great teammates like Dianna [Taurasi] to stay in your ear and get things done on the floor, I don't think you have no choice but to go out and compete to the best of your abilities every night."

Fowles also demonstrated her maturity (and probably scored some points with her teammates) when a reporter asked her reaction to playing on the court with six UConn players, and upstaging them.

That is so not the case! the MVP answered. They are on this team for a reason: They're great players, and they played for a great coach.

They have a lot of energy, and they play well together," she continued. "They know what they want and they know how to win. And to be part of that little crew . . . , it makes you feel good, because you want to be learning from the best of the best.

In the end, particularly with Candace Parker out, the key to USA success is likely to be Diana Taurasi, arguably the best leader of teams in NCAA history. As I said yesterday, her coach enthused, Diana is such a pivotal player on this team, because when she's locked in like she was today . . . . When Diana decides that something's really important, and she gets that look on her face, the game's going to be played a certain way. She's going to dominate the game, and that's just what happened in the beginning today.

With six UConn players on the court today, and Ashja Jones also a member of the team/pool, there has been some grumbling among the press that Auriemma is favoring his own. But really, if you remove from the mix Montgomery and Cash (who are far from certain selections) which American players not already on the roster would contribute more to success than Bird, Taurasi, Charles, Jones, and Moore? The UConn system has been, to say the least, successful, and these players were all brought up in that system, so they play together naturally, whether they were ever teammates or not. On a squad that will have very little practice time, Auriemma can be forgiven if close calls go to his home team.

The WNBA schedule resumes Sunday, as the New York Liberty (who sole contribution to the All-Star roster, Cappie Pondexter, finished with seven points and six assists) host the Chicago Sky (who contributed Fowles and Dupree). Those US Team players who are not required to report to their teams immediately will face Australias National Team (albeit without Lauren Jackson, who though still recovering from her concussion, was present in Connecticut Saturday and worked out briefly following the game with Coach Agler) Sunday morning in a scrimmage open only to credentialed media.