When the letter from USA Basketball first arrived at Samarie Walker's house telling her she was being invited to try out for the Under-19 national team, she was a little surprised. When she saw the list of people who accepted the invitation, she was nearly speechless.

She kept looking for the names of other players in her class and looking and looking and was stunned to find out she was the only high school junior who would be in Colorado Springs for the trials. I asked Walker what her reaction would be if she makes the team.

"I think I might cry," Walker said. "When I was going, I told my dad 'I'm not going to make the team because there are 14 girls there who already play in college and why would they pick me?' He said you have to be confident and go out and play hard, there's a reason why they invited you and a reason you are going to UConn so be confident.

"At first I was really nervous because I knew all the girls were 2-3 years older than I am. 'Why were they inviting me? I am 16 and a junior, everybody else is 18/19 either going to college or already having completed their freshman year.' But after a while I realized this was a great honor. Since I am 16, they must have a lot of confidence in me that I can go out and make the team. Really I am trying to catch up with the other girls and told myself that even if I don't make the team, this is still a great experience."

The candidates for the Under-19 and World University Games teams will be cut down tomorrow. Usually they bring back 15-16 kids before picking the team of 12. The announcement is set for tomorrow morning.

The third of four stories I wrote at the trials will run tomorrow and the focus will be on how the veteran UConn players will be looking to fill the leadership void left by the graduation of Renee Montgomery. I have some pretty good stuff from Tiffany Hayes about how she thinks the backcourt partnership with Caroline Doty will work but space constraints kept me from including it in the paper so I may have to weave it into a blog entry. I found it interesting that when Maya Moore spoke about next year's UConn backcourt, she kept talking about Lorin Dixon. It is easy to overlook Dixon but in Maya's opinion, Lorin will have a bigger role than many people (myself included) are giving her credit for. The final story from the trials will run in Monday's paper. I don't want to give away the subject and spoil the surprise but at the risk of too much self promotion, I don't think you will regret reading Maya Moore's take on the subject matter.

There's so much stuff that won't ever make the paper so expect there to be more information on this blog from the interviews I conducted. I will likely include much of my interview with Russ Davis, the AAU coach of UConn commit Lauren Engeln as well as Nneka Ogwumike's take on her sister Chiney's game and recruiting status since a source indicated to me that Chiney has been receptive to UConn's recruiting pitch.

As much as I enjoy going to Colorado Springs (it is the third year in a row I made it out there), I am relieved to be home especially after I made my connection in Minneapolis with about five minutes to spare. Somehow my flight took off 3 1/2 hours late but I managed to touch down in Bradley only about 75 minutes late since I was able to nix the Minneapolis to Detroit portion of my return trip and go straight from Minneapolis to Hartford.

I have to say the communications staff at USA Basketball makes things pretty easy for me. Of course it helps that I was the only reporter there in the two days I was there but still Caroline Williams and Jenny Maag always come through for me and I do appreciate that. Getting to talk to nine people in two days (not including interviewing Maya Moore twice) would be a nightmare without the assistance of Caroline and Jenny. I even remembered to buy a souvenir this time, getting a hooded sweatshirt for about $20. Tough to beat that price. I regret that I didn't have the time to either revisit the Garden of the Gods or take a walk up Pike's Peak like I did in my first year there. But there simply just was not enough time. My last thought of the evening is to thank the readers who click on the stories. My story on the UConn players' reaction to Jamelle Elliott leaving after 12 years as an assistant coach to become the head coach at Cincinnati is the fourth most read story on the Register's website today and most popular sports story. When I pitch these trips in the future, that little piece of info could go a long way into me getting a chance to head back to Colorado Springs.