USA vs. Australia was the undercard yesterday. About 2,000 enthusiastic fans showed up to watch the young Americans whump the unitarded-ones. Neither team was at "senior" strength, but the 96-54 victory was full of encouraging signs: good chemistry, tough defense, very tall people in the post. We'll talk about the point guard situation later...

Lots of different sources on the game: Some rebkellians reported, Kathleen stepped in for a delayed Mel over at Women's Hoops Guru, Karen Bailis upheld her end of "media who support women's basketball" contingent over at the Monday Morning Quarterbacks blog and focused on the young pups. (You may want to check out her piece on Sue Bird, too).

Oscar decided he'd rather be in Trenton than Detroit, and produced his always fine work for USA Today, while Philly.com's John Smallwood talks about scheduling challenges and the game itself.

After the game, several folk gathered at Hamilton's First & 10. The sports bar staff was kind enough to save us a table and television so we could watch Game 5 midst a sea of football jersey-clad patrons. If you've ever been in a multi-TV, multi-game environment, you know that you get whiplash trying to figure out which TV just had the play that made everyone hoot and holler.

Well, the quality of Game 5 helped us to confuse the heck outta some locals, but they were pretty cool about it. What was even coolier was that every time we "fooled'em," they turned around to see a great play in the WNBA. No razzing (well maybe some from the guy who decided he'd cheer for Detroit since we seemed pretty pro-Phoenix), but there were a few "oooohs" of recognition when we pointed out Rutgers grad Cappie and one guy did toss out a somewhat tentative "RU!" Hope he survived my pointing to him and saying for all the room to hear, "Now THAT's a smart man."

Thanks to ex-Liberty PR person Maureen Coyle for joining us (and her generosity), and it was a true pleasure to sit with Oscar and Mrs. Oscar's wife. ("Hey, hon, I have an idea. Let's drive up from D.C. to Trenton for the weekend and watch the US National team and then hit up a local sports bar to watch the first half of Game 5!" Oscar -- you're such a romantic. And a lucky man.) And a shout out to Lamar the writer/photographer from the Targum -- with young reporters like you, I just KNOW that women's basketball will get the respect it deserves.

Now back to the question about point guards, ball-handling and three-point shooting on the National Team... let's talk after Wednesday's game up in Connecticut, shall we?