USA women's basketball seeks to extend its legacy of winning

WASHINGTON — Tamika Catchings looked around Bender Arena on the campus of American University and couldn't help but think back to 8 years ago.

Now, as the U.S. women's basketball team heads for London for the 2012 Olympic Tournament, the newbies are such players as former Connecticut star and 2011 WNBA Rookie of the Year Maya Moore, and WNBA stars Angel McCoughtry, Lindsay Whalen, Tina Charles and Ashja Jones.

But back in 2004, when the USA team was preparing to leave for Athens, it was Catchings, Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Diana Taurasi who were the rookies heading for their first Olympic tournament.

"Wow, time goes fast," said Catchings, the 33-year-old Indiana Fever star. "I remember how players like Dawn Staley, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes and Katie Smith challenged us as young players to learn, so that we could carry the torch after them.

"I think we did OK. I think they are proud of us. But now I know that for myself this will be my last [Olympics]. I look around at all of these younger players, and it's their turn. Now we pass the torch to them.

Catchings, Swin Cash (32), Sue Bird (31) and Diana Taurasi (30) are the four players going to London who were rookies when the greatest generation of U.S. women's players ended their collective run at the 2004 Games.

Bird, Catchings and Taurasi repeated as gold medalist at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and, now, as savvy veterans, they are looking to guide the United States to a fifth consecutive gold.

Cash missed the 2008 Games because of injuries, but is back for the trip to London.

"I remember back in 2004 after we finished pool play," said Bird, who, along with her onetime UConn teammate Taurasi, is one of seven women to win an NCAA, WNBA and Olympic championship. "[Staley] pulled us all aside for a meeting and basically said, 'Look, we have a three-game season. These are the games that we worked so hard for. It's not what we just did [pool play], because that means nothing.'

"It wasn't to get to the Olympics. It was to win the gold. For those who are in their first Olympics, we might have to remind them of that."

The Olympics first held a women's basketball tournament in 1976, with the old Soviet Union winning the first two.

The United States women won in 1984 and '88. But in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympics, when the "Dream Team" was re-establishing USA dominance in the men's game, the women finished with a bronze medal.

The leaders of the women's program at USA Basketball responded to that disappointment by coming up with an innovative plan for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. A year before the games, the members of the team, including head coach Tara Vanderveer, of Stanford, would step away from what they were doing and commit full time to the Olympic team.

The result was a stunning 80-0 record, including tuneups, that culminated in a 111-87 victory over Brazil in the gold-medal game.

The United States women have now won four consecutive Olympics without losing a game.

This is about legacy and not wanting to be part of a group that doesn't continue a dynasty.

"Back in 2004, we might as well have been employees on the boat," Taurasi said. "We got in a minute here or minute there. We didn't play that much.

"Now we're counted on to make sure this team is ready every time it steps onto the court. It's a responsibility that we take very seriously."

Perhaps that's because the first time they truly had stewardship, they failed.

Team USA entered the 2006 FIBA Women's World Championships confident, maybe a bit too confident. After going undefeated in pool play, the USA whacked Lithuania in the quarterfinals, but in the semifinals, Russia, which had lost to the Americans by 10 in pool play, came away with a 75-68 upset.

A 40-point blowout of host Brazil for the bronze medal did not ease the hurt.

"Looking back now, I think one of the best things that happened to my era of USA Basketball was losing in Brazil in 2006," Bird conceded. "Sometimes the best lessons you learn come from losses.

"What that felt like, knowing that we were the first USA team to lose in International competition in something crazy, like, 10 years did not feel very good.

"It was awful, and none of us want a repeat of that. There is an underlying emotion of not ever wanting to let those previous players down again. They got us to where we are. That '96 team catapulted everything, and you want to be able to keep that going."

The USA women will be favored in London, but archrivals Australia, the only nation to win a major international event besides the United States since 1996, Russia and the Czech Republic will be ready to challenge.

"It's not easy," Bird said. "We're at a huge disadvantage, because the other countries have been training together for months. We'll be together for 2 weeks before our first game.

"The thing that people have to understand about the Olympics is that all it takes is one bad game on the wrong day or one good game on the right one to knock somebody off.

"We're preparing to come to play every single game."

That's what was taught to them in 2004, and it's what they are now telling the next generation as the torch is again being readied to be passed.

Contact John Smallwood at smallwj@phillynews.com. For recent columns, go to www.philly.com/JohnSmallwood.