By Carol Harrison
Associate Editor
Dawn Staley knows the best way to answer her critics. She does her talking on the court, and no one who has watched the USA Basketball National Team over the past five months can miss the statement she made during her team's championship run in the International Women's Basketball Challenge Tournament in China.
Staley and her U.S. teammates ran off another eight wins in the recently completed China tour, and added a victory over the Ukraine in late March. Sporting a 38-0 record after thumping a college all-star team April 6, the USA Basketball National Team assumed the mantle of Olympic favorite by knocking off China and Cuba three times apiece while Staley answered critics who had raised the question of whether the former University of Virgina star was guaranteed a spot on the Olympic Team.
While no one questioned the presence of a healthy Staley on the 11-woman National Team, the oft-injured version that has worn the red, white and blue for the past five months bore little resemblance to the former University of Virginia standout who spent three years on the collegiate Kodak All-American team and was the 1994 USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year. Minor arthroscopic surgery on her knee followed by a freak injury to her finger had sidelined the 5-6 point for all but four of the team's games. The four games in which she saw action produced some dismal numbers: 16.7 percent shooting from the floor and eight percent shooting from the three.
"I didn't really want to play on the college tour," admitted Staley. "I knew there'd be games we'd be up by 40 points. My goal was to play the national team games, and I was a little upset when I couldn't go to Russia. But now we're into the international tours and I'm very happy. My knees are getting stronger and stronger, so from here on out, we won't have any problems out there on the court."
Staley didn't have many problems with China. She started seven of eight games on the Asian swing, and wound up leading the team in steals (8) and assist to turnover ratio (33:7) while shooting an acceptable 45 percent from the floor and and impressive 42 percent from three. She didn't miss a free throw on the tour, hitting all nine of her attempts, and her seven starts tied her for second with Teresa Edwards.
"It's just the beginning," Staley said after distributing eight assists against just one turnover in the team's March 28 win over Ukraine. "I haven't really gotten a chance to get out. When we first got together, I was probably on top of my game. But the injuries set me back, and I'm still trying to get on top. Slowly but surely, I'll get there."
Katrina McClain continued as the team's workhorse, starting in all eight outings and averaging 17.1 points and 11.1 rebounds a game. With Carla McGhee and Sheryl Swoopes missing the trips because of injury, McClain stepped up big-time, hitting 67.5 percent of her shots from the floor.
Lisa Leslie added 16.3 points, but her 5.6 rebounds per game were a drop from the seven she had averaged in the previous tour of Ukraine. While lack of rebounding continues to be a concern, the improvement of Rebecca Lobo should add further depth to the U.S. squad. Lobo averaged 8.3 points and 5.1 rebounds on the Asian swing and was particularly effective against the scrappy South Koreans, who watched her light them up for 24 and 19 points in a pair of USA wins.
USA Basketball has until June 19 to submit the final roster and list of alternates for the '96 Olympic Games, which open in July in Atlanta. While both player selection committee chair Karen Stromme and USA Basketball assistant executive director Lynn Barry stressed that the current 11-woman team is not guaranteed a spot on the squad, they emphasized that the intent is to keep the core together.
"We're not looking to chop anyone," said Stromme, head coach at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. "We did our homework, and Dawn Staley has the credentials to be on this team. The injuries were a blow to her and the team, but it also gave (coach) Tara (Vanderveer) a chance to get some confidence in some other people."
One of those other people was Edwards, who appears headed for her fourth straight Olympics. Edwards led the team with 39 assists in the eight games, and scored a pair of back-to-back field goals in the final minute against Cuba to lock up the 81-78 win that stands as the closest the USA team has come to defeat.
Edwards, however, struggled from three-point range, hitting one-of-12 attempts while forward Katy Steding continued her shooting slump. Steding, a three-point bomber expected to serve as a zone-buster, hit only three-of-25 shots from three and is now shooting 11.7 percent in the 12 games that made up the tour of China and the Ukraine.
Her first game back on U.S. soil didn't signal a change as she was 0-of-3 from three and 1-of-5 overall in 12 minutes of play against the Ukraine. As far as shooting slumps go, this one's a doozy. In international play, Steding is playing with a men's ball and is shooting from a three-point stripe that is 20-6 from the hoop. She put her college numbers up with the smaller ball and from a distance of 19-9. During the college tour, Steding shot 24.6 percent from three and 38 percent from the floor, so her slump is taking on season-long proportions. When asked by a little boy if she was one of the players in the March 28 romp over Ukraine, Steding answered yes, "but you wouldn't notice me tonight."
The China tour also represented an opportunity for Val Whiting to mesh with the squad and give head coach Tara VanDerveer and the selection committee a chance to see the bulk she might add to the lineup. A last-minute replacement for the injured McGhee, Whiting hit on eight-of-19 shots during the tour, grabbing 16 rebounds while totalling one assist and 11 turnovers in the eight games.
McGhee and Sheryl Swoopes, a last-minute deletion from the China tour, were back in action for the March 28 contest. The return of Swoopes and the return to form of Staley leaves VanDerveer with a minor dilemma in the starting lineup. Staley was expected to be the starter when the club got together and Swoopes has been an all-around force up until the concussion scratched her from the China trip. If Staley and Swoopes get the nod at the point and forward spots, that leaves the off-guard spot up for either Edwards or Ruthie Bolton, who averaged 12.6 points a game on the China tour and led the team in scoring on the Ukraine sweep. Regardless of who starts, the Fab Four give VanDerveer some options -- and an ace on the bench.
