USA Women's National Team Members & Hopefuls Close Vegas Camp

Las Vegas, Nev. • May 12, 2011

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The 2009-12 USA Basketball Women's Natioanl Team and a pair of hopefuls spent the last three days learning, gelling, crashing the boards, shooting 3-pointers, blocking shots and everything else associated with hoops. While it was a very short camp, players and coaches agreed that it was extremely helpful in the USA's preparations for London next summer. Check out what some of them had to say about the three-day camp, getting back on the floor with their USA teammates and how the squad continued working on their chemistry.

Seimone Augustus
Talk about the last three days, how you felt, and what you thought was accomplished?
I felt great. I just had a lot of fun out here and I’m glad to be back on the court healthy, playing at an elite level again. I think this week for me was more about enjoyment and just getting back into the flow of playing with these great players.

Did you get a little more comfortable after the first day and feel more in the flow?
Yeah, I felt like myself again. I was playing basketball the way I’m use to. The first day was a lot of nervous energy and a lot of excitement all mixed together so you do a lot of things fast, you turn the ball over and it’s just a disaster.  But the last two days have been great for me.

Swin Cash
How did you think this three-day training camp went?
I’m really happy about the training camp. Just the energy from all the ladies out here, the competitiveness and just people competing, that’s what it is all about.  I think he set the tone for how the next year is going to go leading up to London. 

Did it get easier to get the first one out of the way?
Yeah, for the body. I mean obviously some of us have either had rehab or were coming from overseas, so the first day was average but the second day we really picked it up and today we just really got after it.

How quickly do you gel back together? You all have been playing together for the most part a long time
I think for us it’s an easy transition because everyone is so selfless. When you have people who that are all about the bigger picture, the betterment of the team, than it makes the coaches job a lot easier.

How did it feel to be back with Geno?
Same old, same old … you know that’s the one thing that is good for me is that being around Coach is a comfort thing. I understand what he expects of me, what he needs me to do on the floor and so there are no question marks you just go out there and play.

Asjha Jones
How did you think this three-day training camp went?
I thought it was amazing to bring together 24 players from different teams, different parts of the country and come together and play as well as we did. I thought it was amazing how quickly people picked it up and bought into the program.

Does it get easier as you get more camps under your belt and is the continuity a factor as a lot of the players are the same each year?
For me I kind of new so I get a little more confident and a little bit more comfortable as you get to know people and get to know Coach’s system so definitely the more times you come the better it gets.

Were you nervous, anxious the first day?
I think everybody was a little anxious, it’s and odd time for us to play. A lot of people are coming back from Europe and you kind of take a couple of days off and then you go back to your (WNBA) training camp, so that’s when they called us for this camp so I think everybody came in a little uneasy.

Kara Lawson
What did you think overall of the last couple days of this training camp?
Every time we get together it’s an opportunity for those of us who have been with Geno before to deepen their understanding of the system and then bring in new players and get them exposed to not just his system but playing with each other. I think that’s the biggest thing is building continuity.  We have to do it in pieces, we don’t have long stretches. So any time we can get together it’s valuable and you get a chance to interact with some of the new players like Brittany and Courtney and that’s really good too for the future. 

How did you personally feel during the training?
For me it’s just a matter of trying to get your timing back and everything. I’m not one of the players that plays overseas so for me when I start the season it’s just kind of getting use to that timing and getting your fee underneath you. It felt okay and I feel like now when I come back, this being my fourth time here with the system, that I’m getting more and more carryover so you’re understanding more and more what he wants.

There’s a lot of continuity to this program, does that make it easier to gel and get out there and get it going?
I think the fact that most of us have been playing USA Basketball since we were teenagers so we’re use to having different coaches, having different systems and we’ve been playing with each other for a long time. There’s a group of us who having playing in USA Basketball for a long time, then there’s kind of the next generation of Sylvia (Fowles) and Candace (Parker) and they have been playing together for a long time, then there’s a bunch of us here from ’08, so, yeah I think there is a lot of carryover both personally and interacting with one another and then also the system.

Angel McCoughtry
How did you think this three-day training camp went?
It felt awesome. This is a great group and it’s great to come out here before training camp to play with a great group of women so we can take our team to the next level. We needed this. I know I needed this. It got me back in some good shape, I’ve been kind of relaxing a little bit  on vacation, but we really need this. Whoever came up with the ideal – kudos to them.

You’ve had some past experiences with Geno and some of the women on this team. Is it getting easier to get into the flow with all your teammates?
It is. The first day is always jittery just trying to get back into the flow with the different girls but each day gets better and better, and I learn more and more each time. I think everybody takes it to another level and these girls are the best of the best and they’re going to go back and take their teams to another level.

How important is this training in terms of preparing for the Olympics?
I think this is great. As much as we can get together is awesome. I know a lot of the other teams get together more than we do and I know we have some tight schedule and have to squeeze everything in, but as much as we can come together helps for the Olympics.

Maya Moore
How did you think this three-day training camp went and how you felt and how you felt things went?
I thought the energy was great. Everybody came and brought a really competitive spirit and I thought we got a lot of things done. We looked better and better every day and I’m excited to get back started again  and having the chance to experience this setting before I jump into my WNBA training camp.

How hard is it to pull everybody together and gel everybody together in a short periods like this?
It’s really hard. You’re not use to playing together, different styles, different plays, a few different concepts. Basketball is huge on chemistry so that’s why times like these are so important and I think  everybody is really committed to developing that chemistry. So we chip away, spend time here and there and by the time the Olympics roll around hopefully that chemistry will be great.

Does it help that the program has some veteran players that have been playing for a number of years  who can help lead things on the court?
Yeah, absolutely. The tempo you can just tell when they are out on the court is a t a good pace, good speed and we, the younger players, get to see how they lead, how they play and we absolutely need those role models who we look up to.

Candace Parker
How did you think this three-day training camp went and how you felt and how you felt things went?
It was high intensity, I think everybody brought their A game and really competed and made everybody around them better. For me it was good to get back into shape before the WNBA season starts and it was good to finally be back with USA Basketball healthy.

How did it feel to get back on the court with players you played with before and how important is this for leading up to the Olympics?
I think it’s very important. It’s been a couple of years since I played with USA Basketball because of my injuries and things like that so I’m really excited to get back going, and I think it was good to just get two or three practices in with guys to get some type of chemistry and some type of knowledge of what the coaches expect offensively as well as defensively.

Lindsay Whalen
How did you think this three-day training camp went and how did it feel to get back out there with everyone?
It felt really good. After the first day of getting through jitters for everybody, just kind of getting into the flow, I felt like I did play a lot better after that and really feel like we had a good camp. Some good things happened and everyone played hard and played well so it was a really fun three days.

Is it a big adjustment for you to come from other teams to this program where there is so much talent out there?
Yeah, you come from European team and things are just different, different intensity, different plays and everything. But it’s great to bring your intensity here and play as hard as you can and just have fun.

The expectations for you kind of change when you’re with the USA National Team, you probably aren’t needed to score as much but maybe distribute the ball and run the offense.
I think coach put it well, you have to be unselfish because there are so many good scorers on the court and then know when to take the right shot. For me personally sometimes that’s a thing I need to work on – knowing when to take that shot and knowing when to dish – but I think that’s something everyone deals with a little bit. Coach talked to me about it and I just kind of felt like knowing when to take that shot and knowing when to keep the offense moving is a big part of what makes you successful, makes our team so great here. The ball moves and then a good shoot is going to happen.

This is a compact training period, but how important is it in preparing for the Olympics?
It’s huge because we only have so much time that we can get together because of everyone’s schedules are so busy. So you make sure you get here when we train and then you put everything out there that you feel you  can and I think that’s something everyone does here and that’s what makes it so successful.