By Mel Greenberg
NEW LONDON, Conn. – The Connecticut Sun, at least those of the WNBA Eastern Conference power who are not finishing off overseas competition, opened training camp Monday at Connecticut College with a new look sprinkled with accents of area collegiate stars of the past.
“It’s never going to change, it’s only going to get harder,” said Connecticut coach Mike Thibault of the annual delay in getting a full roster to arrive. “The good thing is they’ll arrive in pairs as they finish playoffs. When Lindsay (Whalen) and (Tamika) Whitmore get done playing each other, they’ll both come back. I could probably root somewhere in there for a series sweep by either side to end it (quicker).
“It could be that Asjha (Jones) and (Sandrine) Gruda won’t play in exhibition games, depending when they get done. Gruda hasn’t stopped playing in two-and-a-half years, so she will go home for a couple of days. It’s possible we won’t have her and (Evanthia) Maltsi for the first game.”
The team is without Katie Douglas, who was traded to Indiana, and Nykesha Sales, who is taking the year off to heal a series of nagging injuries, while center Margo Dydek is taking the year off due to pregnancy. Additionally, Erin Phillips, recovered from being sidelined all last season with a knee injury, is with the Australian national team until after the Olympics.
“This camp is an open tryout in a sense that for our wing positions in many ways,” Thibault said. “We might keep one more post player. That’s open to debate as camp goes along. We have probably 10-12 people who can play the two and three competing for five or six spots. Whoever earns it, earns it.
“There’s more opportunity. Once we traded Katie and Keesha said she wasn’t playing, I had agents calling me, `I’m going to send my kid to your camp.’
“But it’s healthy in a lot of ways. People have to earn a spot, make a name for themselves, and we’re going to give them some time to do it. All those people competing for those spots are here.”
Despite Sales’ absence, the roster has a strong dash of former University of Connecticut personnel. Tamika (nee Williams) Raymond , who had played her whole WNBA career in Minnesota since 2002, comes by way of a trade that sent Kristen Rassmusen to the Lynx.
“This is home,” Raymond said Monday in a discussion indicating you can look at the media to approach her frequently for postgame sound bites. “When my mother drove me to the airport, it was the same place she took me to when I flew to play at Connecticut. Coming here, to put a word on it, is a rejuvenation.”
Raymond was part of the senior bonanza of UConn players, including Sue Bird, Jones, and Swin Cash, who all went quickly in the first round of the 2002 WNBA draft.
“At 27, I think she has seven more years if she wants to play that long,” Thibault said of Raymond’s ability and downplaying the perception of her as an aging veteran.
“Part of that is she’s had injuries and she played for a team that didn’t win. She has a bounce in her step that’s going to be great.”
Raymond had been an assistant in recent season’s to Ohio State’s Jim Foster.
“She’s coming into a comfort zone and she knows we need some more veteran leadership in our lockerroom,” Thibault said.
A year ago, Barbara Turner, another former UConn star, was being pressured by former Seattle coach Ann Donovan to get back from Europe when final roster spots were being determined on the Storm and then found herself quickly cut after she arrived.
She later signed with Houston.
“It’s a lot different,” Turner compared this camp’s start with her experience of a year go. “But things happen for a reason. I’m here. I’m happy.”
Ketia Swanier arrives as a first round draft pick off the UConn Final Four contingent.
Former Temple forward Kamesha Hairston, a first-round draft of last season, played in Israel in the offseason to improve her shot.
“It helped a lot,” Hairston said of driving against other post players.
Another newcomer in camp are former Duke star Jessica Foley, who was acquired as part of the Indiana deal involving Douglas. UConn remember her for the long three-pointer in Hartford at the buzzer tha enabled the Blue Devils to come back from a deep halftime deficit and end the Huskies' NCAA record home-win streak.
Jolene Anderson, a second-round draft pick, 27th overall, is here out of Wisconsin. Former Iowa State star Tracy Gahan is here as a training camp signee, while first-round draft pick and ninth overall Amber Holt out of MiddleTennessee was also in practice attire Monday,
Meanwhile Villanova senior Stacie Witman arrived shortly after the players began some warmup drills. She will be working as a practice player to get some experience.
“I’m a sleeper,” Witman laughed after getting her practice gear.
The Guru responded, “I hear you’re a deep sleeper.”
-- Mel
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