Beavs vs USA. What are you most excited to see tonight?

Granted the National team would make many college players look not so good. I thought the Oregon St. guards threw some bad passes that had no chance of getting through, got their pockets picked too often, and just generally struggled to find good shots. Bird and Taurasi are cagey veterans but not exactly the quickest players. Some of the subs for the U.S. were much quicker of course. On the occasions the OSU guards were able to beat their player off the dribble, that usually meant running into Fowles or Wilson and getting their shot swatted.

Slocum or Pivec might end up doing fine in the WNBA. This game didn't mean they can't possibly play at the next level, but I definitely didn't see that they clearly belong among those players.

For comparison, I thought Carrington and Williams from Stanford played better against the National team than the OSU guards did.

Pivec should not be our PG that is clearly Destiny's job, she's just better. Our offence was too stagnant and against TUSA it was hyper exposed, pg holding/dribbling way too long and no off ball movement. Compared to Stanford who moved the ball quickly and had a lot of off ball screens and movement to get open looks. The worst thing out of this is we just got scouted. On D, our help D was average and we didn't adjust when they decided to take a bit of ground in the second half. But it was TUSA and reality is we only lost by 23, we had 3 injuries on the bench and they will add great depth when they return and our frosh showed us we have a good future ahead.

As usual Gil did not disappoint and I loved Birds interview when she commented on our noise and fans. What a historical day for OSU.

I can't quite believe I'm reading so much criticism of our players and our coaching staff. I don't recall this happening, but it would be like reading tons of criticism of the team for losing to Connecticut by such a wide margin the year the Beavers went to the Final Four. The Beaver women had a fabulous season and Connecticut was just better.

So it was last night. The USA team is simply the best team on the earth. There aren't very many teams at the top of the world; in fact, I think it's exactly one team. And we're dumping on our players for not being quick enough and smart enough and our coaches for apparently not understanding the game very well.

The year of the Final Four was a spectacular season for the Beavers. We all know the story of coming so far in such a few years, and with none of the recruiting advantages the powerhouse teams enjoy. It was simply amazing that year to get to a place where we could play Connecticut in the Final Four. I'm still feeling some of the glow.

And so it is this year. Think what it means for the Beavers to be on the list of teams the USA team schedules to play. What an achievement. I think Coach Rueck had it right--last night was not just a season highlight, but a program highlight that indicates just how far the Beavers have come. So we got beat by the best team on earth, threw some lame passes that had no chance, and got stuffed a few times by Aja Wilson. I can't wait to see how the rest of the season unfolds. Go Beavs.

Coaches and Players have some great film now that will provide a great learning platform for quick improvement.

Good point! I was trying to make the point that we have a few months until we see Stanford, a team that (from my reading of this board, not direct observation, mind you) played Team USA closer than we did. So we have time to improve on areas of weakness surfaced in this match up. But you are correct - "approaching this level of talent" was using 'approach' the same way those "asteroid approaches earth!" newspaper articles tend to do :-).

Go Beavers!