Editor
Though we keep hearing about the U.S. National Team, (and in fact we were pleased to see that our local TV stations actually devoted a few minutes of air time to women when the U.S. played Canada in Oakland) most of us haven't seen much of them. Maybe you caught one of the TV games, but it's a whole different experience to see the team play live. OK, we're biased, but if you haven't seen this level of women's competition -- you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The team got a hint of what the atmosphere might be like in Atlanta when it faced Canada at the Oakland Coliseum Arena June 9. With a crowd of more than 9,000, the fans included the Stanford and Cal bands blasting in the stands, cheerleaders, and many, many, young female athletes (most wearing team shirts from their various athletic endeavors, and not a bare midriff in sight, refreshingly enough). With all the hoopla, the team may have been a bit nervous, as evidenced by shots that wouldn't fall at first and a scoreless first 2:29.
Eventually, though, the Americans got it together and rolled to a 45-23 halftime lead and an eventual 80-62 win -- but it wasn't as easy as it looked.
Tara VanDerveer has referred to 6-5 center Lisa Leslie as " really thin," and has expressed the need for a stronger player under the basket, so it was surprising to see the aplomb with which Leslie handled with Canadian pounding.
"Playing internationally, they always try to beat me up, " she said a few weeks ago, "but I always try to stay focused and keep my composure. I use speed to go around them or beat them down the floor."
Under VanDerveer's direction, the players keep a goal sheet for each game. Leslie says her main goal is to be aggressive, and as Tara puts it, "send a message to the other team that we're not going to back down."
The message seems to be getting through. And if Leslie, Katrina McClain and Sheryl Swoopes are having any problem with physical international play, it certainly wasn't evident in Sunday's game. Though Leslie later referred to the American players as being "too nice" and not aggressive enough at times, they were ready to give the Oakland crowd a show of force Sunday as they mixed it up under the basket. The refs allowed a physical game that revealed Leslie's toughness, Venus Lacy's dominant inside presence, and the scrappy play of guard Dawn Staley.
"Nice" wasn't a word that came to mind. But it did later, when Leslie attempted to explain the elbow that landed in the face of Canada's Karla Karch. "I apologized to her twice, " Leslie said. "I wanted her to know it wasn't intentional. I'm 6-5 and she's 5-6, and when I raised my elbow..." She shrugged. "I went up to after the game to explain it to her." It may not be kinder, gentler basketball, but it's hard to imagine Charles Barkley worrying about whether he offended Karl Malone.
Despite a 27-0 run in international play, VanDerveer still isn't satisfied, and isn't handing out many gold stars no matter how well her players handle the social amenities. She spoke warmly of the enthusiastic Oakland crowd, calling it "the most supportive by far," but alluded to the team's fatigue as a factor in the somewhat ragged play in the first half, mentioning that they'd traveled 70,000 miles since Jan. 1.
"We need to play a lot better than what we're doing right now," she said. She's not pleased with the team's rebounding, and says the team "isn't executing well enough." Her players call her "demanding," but it's this goal-oriented attitude that helps the National Team avoid overconfidence.
It could be an occupational hazard though, while routinely beating other teams by an average margin of 19. Canada gave the U.S. a run for its money on June 7 in a 81-74 game, but the fire just wasn't hot enough on Sunday in front what was a raucous home crowd for VanDerveer, Jennifer Azzi (out with a broken nose) and Katy Steding of nearby Stanford University. Peter Ennis, the Canadian coach, was, not unexpectedly, more effusive in his praise of the U.S, team than VanDerveer, referring to the U.S. as "very big and athletic" and having "the potential to be the best in the world."
Ennis said the U.S. is especially dangerous in an uptempo game where athleticism takes over. The Canadians did a better job of slowing things down in the first two games of the series, but the Americans got into the open floor at will in the first half of the Oakland game. "We don't have a prayer in a track meet," he said ruefully afterward.
The sparks actually began to fly before the tipoff when as Nikki McCray and Ruthie Bolton (the team's second leading scorer with 13 points per game) delivered a sizzling rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."
Bolton was out for the game nursing a sore knee, (she'll be out for three weeks with a strained ligament) and though she was missed, McCray handled her duties without a problem. Venus Lacy saw 14 significant minutes of action, and though she may be slow coming down the court, as Leslie said afterward, "She can bang with 'em. Nobody can beat her up." Lacy contributed nine points and six rebounds Sunday, but her value lies as much in her size and strength as it does in her numbers.
Swoopes lives up to her reputation as poetry in motion, as versatile on the inside as the out. Leslie may be an awesome sight at 6-5, but the muscular grace and strength with which she goes about her job is what is really worth the price of admission.
The difference between watching the National Team and younger players is dramatic. This is the cream of the crop in women's basketball, and it shows. The Americans are not the tallest team in international competition, but as a group, their size, strength and maturity are impressive, and as Azzi pointed out after the game, this team "challenges the myth of women reaching their peak in college." The players feel, and apparently rightly so, that their game has improved tremendously even in just the last year.
We're talking about women like Teresa Edwards, who has played professional international ball for nine years, and the remainder of the team which, with the exception of rookies Rebecca Lobo and Nikki McCray, have spent between one and seven years perfecting their game overseas, where the only professional opportunities beyond college have existed for women until now. Even Lobo and McCray, the so-called rookies of the team, have made four NCAA tournament appearances each, and have spent the last nine months with nothing but basketball on their plates. We're talking about experience here, and it's obvious in the confidence and skill of the players.
Much was made in the local press of the fact that Leslie didn't dunk on a fast break late in the game. Apparently her teammates gave her a bit of a hard time in the locker room about it too. She explained that she thinks more dunk attempts would be "good for the women's game, but my legs wouldn't let me," alluding to the rough schedule they've faced and the triple teaming she'd had to battle all afternoon. "Two points are two points," she defended.
Good for her. Maybe that's why a lot of people prefer to watch women. Barkley would have gone for the dunk if it killed him.
