TRENTON -- She might be one of the greatest college players in the game right now, but at heart, Candice Wiggins is just a star-struck kid.
If she keeps playing like she did in her first game with the U.S. women’s senior national basketball team, she’s the one who’ll have others star-struck.
The Stanford University senior guard scored 18 points in 21 minutes of play in Team USA’s 96-64 win over the Aussies in Trenton in preparation for an Olympic qualifying tournament in Chile next week. The 20-year-old also picked four steals, dished two assists and made one block. Only veteran Tina Thompson, a 2004 gold medalist and four-time WNBA champion, scored more points, with 21 – in 24 minutes.
Still, after the game at Sovereign Bank Arena, Wiggins, who like Thompson went 3-for-4 from behind the arc, bubbled with effusive praise for her teammates and appeared ready to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming about playing with the veterans she grew up admiring.
“These players, I was young and I was watching and they all changed women’s basketball,” Wiggins said. “To be on the same court with them is kind of overwhelming, but it’s very inspirational. You learn a lot about … I’ve learned so much in these past eight days as I have in my whole career basically. It’s amazing, obviously.”
Wiggins is part of the youth movement on the senior national team, getting their shots while some of the mainstays have moved on (Dawn Staley, now coaching, and Yolanda Griffith) or can’t play because of injury (Sheryl Swoopes and Tamika Catchings) or giving birth (Lisa Leslie). She joined two other collegians, Courtney Paris of Oklahoma and Candace Parker of Tennessee, on the 10-woman roster that also was depleted because of the WNBA Finals. Cappie Pondexter and Diana Taurasi of the WNBA champion Phoenix Mercury and Katie Smith of the Detroit Shock are expected to join the team. Cheryl Ford and Deanna Nolan of the Shock are nursing injuries.
The 5-11 Wiggins can play point or shooting guard and is trying to learn as much as possible from Staley, a three-time gold medalist and her coach this summer at the Pan Am Games, and starting point Sue Bird, a gold medalist, WNBA champ and two-time NCAA champ. Her college coach, Tara Van Derveer, who coached the U.S. to Olympic gold in 1996, has told Wiggins stories about that team and its legendary guards, Staley and Teresa Edwards, who won a record four basketball golds. But Wiggins couldn’t bring herself to chat with Edwards when she was at training camp in Manhattan.
“I was kind of too nervous to try,” she said and giggled. “It’s like, what do you say? I get so … I’m star struck. Even now I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Sue Bird!’ You know, whatever they say, you listen and just show so much respect. … And now you just want to inspire people like that, you want to be a better player because of that.”
The play of the young stars impressed their elder teammates, especially DeLisha Milton-Jones, 33, who Thompson pointed out was the most senior on the senior national team.
“The future of USA Basketball is very bright, very, very bright,” Milton-Jones said. “I was just talking with Dawn Staley, and I was telling her, ‘Man, these girls are phenomenal. They’re big, they’re mobile, they’re playing above the rim, it’s like, what have y’all been eating or what is your momma feeding you? Give me some of that.’ … I’m really impressed with them, and they’re also modest and humble. That’s the thing that I feel is most precious about the young players. They’re so eager to learn and … they’re not complacent about where they are, their skill level and everything.”
Paris, 6-3 and 250, and the youngest player on the team at 19, recorded 12 points and 3 assists. Parker, 6-4, had 8 points and 3 steals, and Jessica Davenport, 6-5, of the Liberty, the only WNBA rookie on the squad, tallied 9 points.
“Just the fact that those guys could step and kind of make it happen immediately makes it a lot easier for us,” Thompson said. “So our strength, especially for this tournament, is definitely going to be our inside game, just because we have an advantage, we’re a little bigger, our posts are very versatile and agile. So hopefully we’ll take advantage of it.”
Sometimes, though, the rookie posts take advantage of their youth, like the time Wiggins and Parker asked Thompson, 32, when she graduated from college. When she answered 1997, the same year the WNBA started, Davenport chimed in that she was in the seventh grade at the time.
Still, Parker recalled with reverence how she and Wiggins were chatting about being 10 or 11 years old and first seeing the Nike commercial that starred Thompson and Houston Comets teammates Swoopes and Cynthia Cooper.
“We’re in a generation where we grew up watching women play basketball,” Parker said.
And Paris said that’s brought success.
“We’re just products of how our sport has grown, and we’re just offering that trying to help out USA Basketball.”