Former Highlands Ranch star enjoying steady diet of hoops

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 24, 2003 by KARL LICIS

In a room full of standouts, Ann Strother is hard to miss.

She's 6-foot-2, a trim 162 pounds, good-natured but maybe a bit shy.

She can play a little basketball . . . but, then again, so can everyone else on the three courts that may be in simultaneous use during one of six spirited practice sessions at the Olympic Training Center.

Strother is one of four players with Colorado connections at the USA Basketball Women's National Team Trials under way at the OTC. Tera Bjorklund, University of Colorado; Lindsay Thomas, Colorado State; and Jamie Carey, a Horizon High School graduate who plays collegiately at Texas, are among the 59 players at the event, which will determine the two U.S. teams in international competition this summer.

One, coached by Jim Foster of Ohio State, will be the USA Young Women's National Team, bound for the inaugural FIBA World Championship For Young Women, July 25-Aug. 3 in Sibenik, Croatia. The team is for players born after 1981. The other, coached by Virginia's Debbie Ryan, will represent the United States at the Pan American Games, Aug. 2-9 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Though coaches will have some input, the 12-player teams will be picked by a 10-member selection committee, headed by Chris Plonsky, senior associate athletic director at Texas, chair of USA Basketball's Women's Collegiate Committee and its vice president for women. The rosters will be announced Sunday after a final workout. (Because of space limitations, the sessions are not open to the public.)

"The two competitions are very different," Plonsky said. "The Eastern bloc has a style of play that is different from most of the Western Hemi- sphere teams. We'll select our athletes based on how they match up against the opposition and how they fit the styles of our coaches.

"But the name of the game is winning gold medals. We have the elite of the elite here. Now we're starting to see things like who's in shape and who can run an offense. We're looking for things like team chemistry and how they adjust to a different environment. We'll try to pick the athletes necessary to win those two competitions."

Strother appears to meet all the criteria. Certainly her credentials are impressive.

She became serious about the game while playing for the Colorado Hoopsters, a club that fields traveling youth teams in several age groups.

Strother led Highlands Ranch High School to backto-back state championships in 2001 and 2002, claiming state tournament MVP honors her senior year. She was selected 2002 national high school player of the year by USA Today, WBCA, Parade Magazine and Gatorade, and received the Naismith high school player of the year award.

In 2001, Strother was the only high school player on the USA Basketball Women's Junior World Championship team, which won the bronze medal in Brno, Czech Republic, with a 6-1 record.

"I had just an awesome time," she said. "You play with all the top collegiate players and you get to know them on and off the court."

All that may have been just a prelude, however. Strother enrolled at perennial powerhouse Connecticut last fall.

"I got a chance to play for (UConn) coach (Geno) Auriemma here at the USA trials and I kind of got to know the way he coached," she said.

"He reminded me a lot of the coaches I'd been used to, and he had a lot of qualities I really liked. He'll tell you exactly what you're doing wrong; he won't sugarcoat anything."

Her impact was immediate. Strother started all 38 games as a freshman, helping Connecticut to a 37-1 record, the Big East Conference title and, ultimately, the NCAA championship.

Strother averaged 10.1 points and 3.1 assists during the season, and in the national championship game scored 17 points en route to all-Final Four honors.

International competition may be another game, however.

"The teams we play against play all the year around," Strother said. "They go to a school for basketball, and they're a lot stronger and thicker and bigger. And what we would think would be travel, would be just normal everyday work for them."

Strother plans to eventually enter some field of medicine - pediatric nursing, perhaps - but not before her basketball career is finished. The Olympics and other top international competition may lie ahead, but for the moment, she's focused on the trials.

"If I make one of these teams, I'll be at it all summer," Strother said. "Otherwise, I'll be back at school studying and working out. Either way, it'll be basketball for me this summer."

- CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0256 or klicis@gazette.com