September 16th, 2007: Australia at USA

All kinds of interesting people show up to Sovereign Bank Arena for an international friendly… including the Game Notes of Doom and Jessica Davenport's A-game.


So the interesting thing about this game was that it wasn't the A-list team, for the most part, which meant seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces- and in the Aussies' case, matching faces and game to players I've heard about from the Aussie correspondents. It was almost nice not to really know who anyone was; I didn't go in with expectations.

So after all these years, I finally get to see Natalie Porter play. Man, talk about the one that got away! I wouldn't have minded *her* coming off the bench instead of any of the array we had behind Whitmore in 2000. Big, strong, quick, nice outside shot, though she's a little chippy for my liking. Liked Rohanee Cox's shooting- looked like she had both a nice shot and good shot selection. I also see the potential in Abby Bishop that some of the Aussie posters had mentioned- she looks kinda like the impossible lovechild of Penny and LJ, just the way she holds herself. Laura Summerton has either lost weight or those bodysuits are much more flattering than WNBA uniforms are, because she looked quite slim, and I recalled her being much bulkier in the W. Mom thought she was playing dirty, but I disagreed. Tully was Tully- I had thought she wasn't playing this tour, so I was pleasantly surprised to see her out there. The Aussies seemed surprisingly physical, although it was more out of the guard spots than it was the post spots. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of the younger players come over eventually. There aren't enough Aussies in this league. Something needs to be done.

What a wonderful day for Jess to have one of her best games of the year. No, she didn't hit her shots, but she did a damn good job drawing fouls and getting to the line. There was one play where she was on the boards and the ball just went to those big hands of hers like it was magnetized. If she can work on her footwork and foot speed, or just steal Courtney Paris's feet, she'll be a monster. She did take a hard hit to the face in the late third or fourth and was pretty much out after that. Tina Thompson looked *good*- maybe it was just because she didn't feel the need to put on her lucky lipstick, maybe she finally put her shoulder back together, but she was ON. She played a lot of three with two bruising post players out to help her, which I thought was an interesting little wrinkle; who are our threes with Catch out? Kara Lawson was all over the damn place- if she keeps up this pace, I don't want to hear any more about any damn Becky Hammon. I'm officially on the "Liberty, please draft Candice Wiggins" bandwagon. Love to watch her go. Parker was hot early on, but seemed to cool early in the game. Loved me some Courtney Paris, but that's nothing new; big girls need love, too, no discriminating. Most of the Americans seemed to be on top of their game. Milton-Jones wasn't particularly memorable. Augustus showed she really was working on the defense thing, but… eh. Bird really did not look good, and there were a couple of moments in the game where I turned to my mom and said, "You know, it'd be nice if we had a backup point guard, one who could make good passes, maybe shoot a little, defend, take a lot of punishment… wow, I wish I knew of a guard like that in the pool."

Sarcasm. Just another service I offer.

The stargazing was almost as much fun as the game itself! St. Joseph's was tailgating about two parking spaces over from us, we spotted Patty heading for will call, and we were in the row behind Michelle Edwards (who was going over this season's Rutgers uniforms with someone, presumably another employee of the state university of New Jersey), who gave me a peculiar look when I whooped and hollered for Jess until I popped my shirt. A few seats down was Jenny Boucek, who, um, really shouldn't walk around Trenton like that. There were Owls and Tigers and Pirates, oh my! (I have the sneaking suspicion that one of the Temple student managers was in our row; she looked rather familiar.) We almost got run over by a Princeton center. Chelsea Newton was in our section- RU has some really nifty sweatshirts this year! I think I also spotted Anne Donovan's mum, or at least a Donovan of some sort; she looked just like AD, except older, with fluffy white hair. Someone else spotted Blaze, and yet someone else spotted Cheryl Miller. Took all the intestinal fortitude I had not to walk up to Patty and say, "That Davenport kid can play, huh? Would've been nice to see her on the court for us." I think I was afraid she'd think I was serious- please bear in mind that the shirt I was wearing was my Davenport tee.

I'm really looking forward to Wednesday; maybe we'll have more of the roster by that point and it'll be more competitive.

Requisite ID: brunette, blue Davenport tee, section 115, abandoned all hope of finding everyone.