Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Katie Feenstra and the rest of their USA teammates are adjusting to being in Russia prior to the FIBA World League Tournament

October 19, 2007 • Ekaterinburg, Russia

The USA Basketball Select Team set out for Russia on Monday morning, meeting in Dulles Airport, flying overnight to Frankfurt, hanging out all day awaiting another overnight flight to Ekaterinburg and finally, at 4:50 on Wednesday morning, touching down in Ekaterinburg.

The 30-plus hours of travel took its toll on the bodies of everyone and it showed when the team stepped onto the court on Thursday morning. Slo mo. Super slo mo. Reverse. Yes, reverse. That's about how it was. Thankfully everyone has begun to adjust to the 10- to 13-hour time difference and Friday's practice looked much better. Not great, but better.

But don't take our word for it. USA Basketball.com sat down with possibly the most traveled member of the squad, definitely the oldest, Taj McWilliams-Franklin of the Los Angeles Sparks. Check out what she had to say …

I've been on worse travel days, but this was probably among the top three. Traveling from the States to Frankfurt, hanging out there all day, and then arriving here at 4:50 a.m, and getting in the room at 6:00 a.m., which is fine with me. I got to eat breakfast and then lay down.

It's just hard on your body and it really shows when you get out there on the court. We looked awful. But once we got it out of our systems, I don't know if we actually looked better today, but I felt better. I don't think we looked good enough to be playing in this tournament yet, but we'll definitely pull it together in the next couple of days.

We have some pretty good talent here. We have six players who were with the National Team in Chile and you have five of us who are coming in, trying to merge with them and create a nice team. We're not the tallest, we're not the most talented National Team, but I think coach Donovan and the (USA Basketball Senior National Team) Committee want to mix it up with some different looks and see how it works out.

I think it's real important for us to build chemistry here. I think it's not just important for the National Team and the people who are looking at the make-up of the team for Beijing, but also for each individual player that's out there. Because you don't know who you're going to be playing with, what five's going to start, who's going to come off the bench, who's going to give you that big boost, what they need from you. This is your opportunity to push yourself, play with other players and know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Once you know that, you become a stronger team because you can assist … where I might be weak cutting off the baseline, Katie Smith knows that so she's going to help early. Whereas I know that Katie Smith is strong guarding in the post, even though she's not a post player, so I'm not going to help as much, I'll help on the skip passes. Just knowing players and knowing what you can do creates a better offensive and defensive flow when you're on the court.

You don't know who you're going to be playing with at any given time so you have to know the players.

With this new dynamic you don't know as many faces as you would before. Diana Taurasi is here, Sue Bird, Katie Smith, but you're missing Catchings, Tina Thompson, Candace Parker, Lisa Leslie, so the players who you know their game, they're not here. Now you have to adapt and change your game and your mentality to be able to help and see and adjust to other players.

We're going to have to have some good team bonding over the next few days. We're going to dinner together tonight…it's going to be a war, this tournament. In order for the USA to come out with an unblemished record we're going to have to put down some amazing talent. You're talking about a pool of players from Cuba, from Russia, Australia, Lithuania, the pool of players who are in there aren't exactly on the same (national) team, but they're going to be the same components that are going to be in Beijing.

You have Penny Taylor, Kristen Harrower, who's the point guard for the Australian team. You have Tully Bevilaqua coming in for the Canberra Capitals, (Maria) Stapanova, (Ann) Wauters, you have players who are top-tier talented like Rakhmatulina from the Russia National Team. These are players who made an impact in last year's World Championships and who will make impacts in Beijing. They're scattered, but they still have the same talent they have when they're with their national teams.

It's a big, big challenge for not only the post players but also for the guards to get down and get focused so we can have some kind of blueprint on what we're going to need to do in order to be focused for Beijing.

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