Oregon women’s basketball star Shaquala Williams has accepted an invitation to the USA Basketball National Team Trials and will compete for a spot on the 12-member roster later this month.
Despite sitting out the entire 2000-01 season because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, Williams was chosen to join a group of 35 of the top women’s collegiate basketball players in the nation, including 13 who earned All-American honors in 2001.
The USA Basketball Women’s Collegiate Committee will select 12 of the players for the 2001 USA Women’s World University Games Team. The trials will be held at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs on May 18-21. The final 12-member team will be announced during a training camp from Aug. 6-12.
Williams was named the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year in 2000 after averaging 17.7 points and 4.4 assists per game as a sophomore. The 5-foot-6 guard from Portland was selected as an alternate on the World University Games team following her freshman season.
Six other Pac-10 players were also invited to the trials. Stanford’s Cori Enghusen and Lindsey Yamasaki, UCLA’s Michelle Greco, Washington’s Andrea Lalum and Loree Payne as well as Oregon State’s Felicia Ragland were all invited. In all, seven conferences will be represented at the trials, with the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-10 leading the way with seven players each.
The World University Games is a multi-sport competition open to men and women between the ages of 17 and 28 who are (or have been in the last year) a student at a college or university. The Games, held every two years and organized by the International University Sports Federation, will be held from Aug. 22-Sept. 1 in Beijing, China.
This year’s World University Games feature women’s basketball teams from 20 countries, which have been divided into four preliminary-round pools. The United States team has been placed in Pool B and will face Canada, Ireland, Japan and South Africa in the preliminary round.