Football
Associated Press 18y

Women's hoops team to hold training camp at Duke

DURHAM, N.C. -- The United States women's basketball team will hold training camp primarily at Duke beginning later this month in preparation for the world championships.

The Americans will practice 14 times in a nine-day span beginning Aug. 29 and then wrap up camp with an exhibition game against Australia on Sept. 7 in Durham. The world championships start Sept. 12 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

The site allows a homecoming for former Duke star Alana Beard and makes things convenient for Blue Devils coach Gail Goestenkors, a national team assistant. The team is led by Anne Donovan, coach of the WNBA's Seattle Storm.

"It hasn't been lost on anyone in women's basketball just how much [the sport] has grown in the Carolinas," USA Basketball president Val Ackerman said. "I've watched Duke women's games on TV, and you think you're watching a Duke men's game, because you have the great fans there who are hopping around behind the bench with their painted faces and bodies, and it's terrific."

During a news conference Thursday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Goestenkors said she mentioned to USA Basketball officials that she would prefer holding camp in North Carolina because she was reluctant to leave the Blue Devils during the academic year.

"They were very open to the idea," Goestenkors said. "The more we talked about it, the more sense it made."

The Americans will hold 12 practices at Duke and will work out once at both North Carolina and N.C. State before playing Australia in a rematch of the gold medal games at both the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympics.

The U.S. won both of those and is 42-0 in Olympic and world championship tournaments during the past decade. In April, the Australians upset the Americans in the finals of a four-nation tournament in Australia.

"Australia's certainly going to make a push, and they're going to be primed to take us down," Goestenkors said.

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