Donovan does it again

No, it wasn’t the team that’s going to go to Beijing. But then again, the U.S. Select Team wasn’t playing Australia or Russia either.

Under the shaky guidance of Anne Donovan, though, an American team with four Olympians managed to find a way to lose not once, but twice, to European club teams this past week in Russia. The second defeat came in the finals of the FIBA World League Tournament, and the wakeup call for USA Basketball should have been heard loud and clear halfway around the world in Colorado Springs.

OK, losing to CSKA Moscow, with its front line of elite posts Maria Stepanova and Ann Wauters, isn’t completely shocking, especially given that the Americans didn’t have Lisa Leslie, Tina Thompson, Yolanda Griffith or Sylvia Fowles. Taj McWilliams-Franklin and Janel McCarville are undersized, to be sure, so give the Russians the edge inside, but the loss is still a major surprise. The U.S. was expected to win this tournament, as it sent an all-star team to play against club teams (which are not nearly as strong as WNBA teams).

The U.S. started Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi in the backcourt against Olga Arteshina and Edwige Lawson-Wade, which should have been more than enough of an edge to control the game’s rhythm and tempo. Maybe Ilona Korstin is as good as Katie Smith, but would you rather have Seimone Augustus, Cappie Pondexter, Katie Feenstra and Kara Lawson coming off the bench, or Amaya Valdemoro, Nicole Powell, Becky Hammon and Ekaterina Lisina?

Granted, Valdemoro is much better than when she barely could get off the bench in the WNBA, but Augustus is one of the great young players in the game. Feenstra and Lawson or Powell and Lisina? I’m taking the 6-8 post and gritty guard over the solid Powell and a nobody.

Hammon, of course, is better than starter Bird (she proved it during the WNBA season, overall and head-to-head), but then again Pondexter might be better than Bird too. In 50 fewer minutes, Pondexter scored six more points, went to the free-throw line five more times, had one fewer rebound, one fewer assist, and most telling, seven fewer turnovers. Yes, Bird shot for a higher percentage, but since the team went 3-2 in Russia, it’s not as if the team’s success justifies those 10 more minutes a game. Still, Bird’s a pretty good player and Hammon only played 17 minutes in the gold medal game.

But Donovan, as usual, managed to underachieve. The bronze at the 2006 World Championships was a stunner, but the six-point win over Cuba at the FIBA Americas should never have been that close. That Cuban team, minus its best player, had lost to the third best American team (led by Candice Wiggins and Angel McCoughtry, neither of whom are close to playing on the Olympic team next summer) by 15. Of course, that team was coached by Dawn Staley, who clearly can get a lot more out of her available talent than Donovan. (The Cubans also caught the Americans by surprise in Chile, running new patterns, but then again, isn’t the best coach in the country supposed to be able to make adjustments on the fly? And if Donovan isn’t the best, why is she coaching the Olympic team, which is supposed to be the best America has to offer, in all aspects?)

Donovan’s reaction in Russia? “I don’t know if it was fatigue or the fifth game in six days, but we just didn’t play our best, that’s for sure. Offensively we didn’t make shots, we had some turnovers at the wrong times when we were trying to make a run. It just wasn’t our night.”

There have been too man ‘not our nights’ since Donovan took over – including another embarrassing loss in Russia. This one took place in pool play, to Vilnius, and the story there is even grimmer. Vilnius only went 2-3 in the tournament, and its starting lineup was Nykesha Sales (never seriously considered for the National Team), Kristin Haynie (who can’t start for the Sacramento Monarchs), Yelena Leuchanka, Sandra Valuzyte and Egle Sulciute.

Again, Donovan had four Olympians, plus Pondexter, McWilliams-Franklin, McCarville, Feenstra and Lawson. Any player on the American team would not only have started for Vilnius, but would have been, at worst, its second-best player. And yet, the Select Team lost.

When talent doesn’t play up to expectations once, it could be luck (losing to Russia in the 2006 World Championships). When it doesn’t play up to expectations twice, it could be coincidence (barely beating Cuba in the FIBA Americas). When it happens three times, it’s a pattern (CSKA Moscow). When it happens four times (Vilnius), it’s time to make a change.

At this point, in fact, this is no longer about Donovan, who has given ample proof that she cannot successfully coach at this level. No, the burden now falls on the Senior National Team Committee, which cannot ignore the facts any longer. That group – which consists of non-voting chair Reneé Brown (WNBA), Pat Summitt, Carol Blazejowski, Kelly Krauskopf, Roger Griffith, Penny Toler, Jennifer Azzi and Teresa Edwards – must now pull the trigger and replace Donovan.

If they don’t, the blame falls on them, not on Donovan (though recognizing her limitations and resigning would be the right thing to do). That body has the ultimate responsibility for the makeup of the Senior National Team, and it also has the responsibility to consider how its decisions impact not only USA Basketball, but women’s basketball as a whole.

First, it does matter how well the Senior National Team does at the Olympics. Not winning the gold, with the best talent in the world (and make no mistake, the U.S. does have the best talent, by far), will affect public perception of the sport from top to bottom. The underachiever tag, which has been applied to the men, will now broaden to include the women, or perhaps be stuck only on their backs if the men win gold in Beijing. The game, generally conceded to be the strongest women’s team sport in the country, will take a competitive body blow, and should the soccer team or volleyball team take gold, will shuffle behind those winners in terms of participation, support and media attention.

If the U.S. sends its best team, with its best coaches, to Beijing and loses, that’s no disgrace. But clearly, Anne Donovan is not the best coach for the Senior National Team. Her teams have made that point in ways that no journalist could ever hope to, and now it’s up to the Senior National Team Committee to act on the objective facts and put someone else in charge.

It may be necessary to rewrite the rules so that a college coach, or non-WNBA coach, can be considered for the job, but that’s a technicality. With any kind of motivation, the bylaws could be changed in a few months’ time, and someone like Staley, or Mike Thibault, or even Van Chancellor or Nell Fortner (both proven winners on the international stage) could be brought in.

But what will be truly sad if the committee does nothing, and says nothing, and moves on just as if nothing bad has happened, and makes it clear Donovan’s platitudes and failures are perfectly acceptable to USA Basketball. That will also tell us that not only does the Senior National Team Committee have no commitment to the sport of women’s basketball, but neither does anyone else in the game’s hierarchy.

American women’s basketball deserves better than that – and the Senior National Team certainly deserves a better coach.