Candice Wiggins has been added to the pool of players in camp for the United States National Team that is is training from Sept. 9-12 at John Jay College in New York.

Joining Wiggins is Oklahoma's Courtney Paris, Tennessee's Candace Parker and LSU's Sylvia Fowles as the only players still playing basketball collegiately.

They'll be competing amongst 27 of the nation's top players to make the final roster for the FIBA Americas Championship For Women that will be played from Sept. 26-30 in Valdivia, Chile. The winner of that tournament automatically qualifies for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Continue reading "USA's Future" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anyone following USA Basketball this summer - both men's and women's - has seen the red, white and blue become golden on three occasions out of a possible five medals.

And the gold medals are all hanging around the women's necks.

The USA women rolled to gold medals in the FIBA Under-21, FIBA Under-19 and Pan American Games tournaments, while their male counterparts only managed one medal, a silver for the U19 team. The Pan Am Games team finished fifth, failing to medal.

And now, for the piece de resistance, the World University Games are underway in Bangkok, Thailand and both the men and women decided, for the first time ever, to ship an entire team over instead of picking and choosing their own.

Continue reading "USA Trash Talk" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The NCAA should be salivating over the performance of the USA Under-19 FIBA World Championship team these past few weeks in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Team USA just put the finishing touches on a dominating gold medal, defeating Sweden Sunday, 99-57.

The Americans swept the tournament field, going 9-0 and averaging a margin of victory of 35 points per game. They were easily the class of the field with only Spain managing to test them in the slightest in a game the Americans won, 74-66.

Continue reading "For The Greater Gold" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me set the record straight once and for all.

Tennessee and Connecticut are rivals. The players who make up their rosters are not.

When USA Basketball held the Pan American Games team training camp at American University in Washington D.C., it brought together some of the best players from all over the nation onto one roster of 12 individuals with the same goal. Winning the gold medal for the colors red, white and blue.

So when the 2-3 zone that the Pan Am team will utilize often has a familiar back line of Nicky Anosike, Charde Houston and Alexis Hornbuckle, those players never let their school colors get in the way of team unity.

Continue reading "Side by Side Rivals" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forgetting about basketball for a second, one has got to think that the Team USA U19 squad is getting the raw end of this deal.

The deal I'm referring to, of course, is being sent to faraway Bratislava, Slovakia--portrayed in movies as both a breeding ground for deviants and a destitute old-world land where a little change gets you the penthouse suite at the finest hotel in town and lobster dinners galore.

OK, so it's not that bad, but compared to the luxurious resort destination of Rio de Janiero, where the Pan-American Games are being held, Bratislava must sound like a prison camp.

Continue reading "Americans at American" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Like four swinging senior citizens living together in a house in Florida, the women's Team USA Under-21 national team was golden...again.

The USA U21s absolutely dominated Team Australia in the finals, 96-73, putting to rest any thoughts of an Australian upset because of their narrow 90-88 loss to the U.S. in the preliminaries.

Maryland's Crystal Langhorne led the way with 23 points and 14 rebounds and Wisconsin's Jolene Anderson, Auburn's DeWanna Bonner and Stanford's Candice Wiggins all had 14 points apiece to lead the U.S.

Continue reading "Golden Opportunities" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

While the news that the USA women's basketball program has chipped their Under-21 roster down to its final 12 participants is slightly old hat, chances are many of the readers of this blog have yet to hear about it. So here it goes.

The final roster that will travel to Moscow, Russia to play in the World Championships on June 29-July 8, consists of 12 stellar athletes.

They are: Oklahoma's Courtney Paris, Jolene Anderson of Wisconsin, DeWanna Bonner of Auburn, Rutgers' Essence Carson and Kia Vaughn, Maryland's Laura Harper and Crystal Langhorne, Ashley Houts of Georgia, Marscilla Packer from Ohio State, Abby Waner of Duke, Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton of Purdue and last but not least, Stanford's three-time All-American Candice Wiggins.

Continue reading "They Goin' Moscow" »

Posted by Jeff Lippman at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)