FORT MILL, SC -- Lisa Leslie scored 31 points and grabbed 13 rebounds and teammate Ruthie Bolton added 18 points to lead the USA Basketball National Team to a workmanlike 93-69 victory over the Ukraine Olympic Team March 28 before a packed house of 4,166 at the Charlotte Hornets Training Facility.
It was the fifth win in five outings against the Ukrainian club, which is the top 1996 Olympic qualifier out of the European championships. Considered by the experts as one of theserious medal hopefuls for the upcoming Olympics, the ease of last night's 24-point win served notice that visitors from abroad should set their sights on something other than gold. The USA National Team is now 37-0, with 16 of those wins coming against international competition. Up until last night, all of those international wins had been on foreign soil, the last of which was an 84-77 victory over China on March 15.
"Our team is doing well and has improved a lot," said head coach Tara VanDerveer. "But there are definitely some things we can do better. We gave up some easy baskets, our defensive pressure could be better, we weren't moving and screening well, and we can get into our transition game better, but for the first game in 10 games or so..."
VanDerveer's club committed only 10 turnovers and shot nearly 53 percent from the floor to overwhelm a Ukrainian team that started two 6-5 post players and no one shorter than 6-1. USA starters Bolton, Dawn Staley and Teresa Edwards average a shade over 5-8, and 6-2 Katrina McClain gave away three inches in the pivot. But the 6-5 Leslie gave away nothing and took the visitors to the hole for 21 first half points, including six straight to give the USA a 23-16 lead with 8:05 gone in the game.
The USA National Team seemed to lose interest for a period, allowing the less athletic Ukrainians some easy drives to the hoop and uncontested perimeter shots, and the visitors took full advantage, going on an 8-0 run that cut the gap to 40-35 with 5:07 left in the half.
The spurt served as a wake-up call for the USA, which roared out of a timeout with an 8-0 run of its own, highlighted by Leslie's open court block of Diana Sadovniko's seemingly uncontested layup. Leslie motored out to the lane, where Staley found her for a 3-on-0 layup that made it a 48-35 lead with 2:06 to go in the half.
"To be honest with you, espeically in the first half, we didn't play all that well tonight," said former University of Connecticut star Rebecca Lobo. "But you saw flashes of what Katrina can do and what Teresa can do. We've got some awesome talent on this team."
Some of those flashes included a half-court, off-the-dribble bounce pass from Staley to Edwards for a layup, a pair of no-look, wraparound passes in transition by Swoopes and two McClain blocks within a four-minute period in the second half in which the USA opened an 81-59 lead.
"I thought we came out kind of shaky," admitted McClain. "But then we got down to playing some of the defense we're capable of playing."
That defense held the Ukraine club to 14 points in the first 10:37 of the second half, and shut down 6-2 forward Maryna Tkatchenko, who had 21 in the first half but finished with only 25.
"They're good; real, real gooood," said Kay Yow, a former Olympic coach and current coach at North Carolina State. "They're playing real sound ball, but without a lot of emotion. You just watch them and see that they can play at this level every night, with no problem. It's kind of like an NBA team in the regular season. It's very business-like. But come the playoffs, it's a different story. The Olympics will be a different story. Then we'll see this talent playing with intensity and emotion. It should really be something."
In the meantime, VanDerveer can worry about the competition: defending world champion Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Italy and China. The USA has yet to play Brazil, Australia or Italy, but the Italians visit July 13 in Indianapolis and the Russians are coming to Chicago June 15. An Australian tour is scheduled for May.
But even if the National Team keeps its unbeaten string intact, Leslie, McClain and VanDerveer have no worries about overconfidence.
"Every time we put on our uniforms, pride keeps us from being overconfident," said Leslie. "Every day's a new day, a new ball game, a new court and a different basketball."
"I know what we're capable of doing and I know what other teams are capable of doing," said McClain, who's preparing for her third Olympics. "They're capable of walking on the court and kicking our butt. We can walk out there and expect them to lie down, but they won't."
"And we're not the defending world champions," Vanderveer said.
