I reached out to Jason Nichols, the high school coach of UConn commit Michala Johnson to get a sense of where the athletic 6-foot-3 rising senior at Montini Catholic of Lombard, Ill. in recovering from her torn ACL.

Johnson missed nearly her entire junior season but looks like she will be good to go for her senior season.

"Michala is ahead of schedule and doing well," Nichols said in an e-mail. "She has been running since the first of June. That was the same time she was on the court doing light basketball workouts. She has built up her level of intensity in her rehab and her basketball workouts since that time."

Johnson was cleared last week to start doing half-court basketball drills. Nichols and his staff can't work with her since it is the off season but her teammates have
been working out with her three days a week. Johnson plays for about an hour and spends 1 1/2 hours rehabbing the surgically-repaired knee.

"She looks good," Nichols said. "She looks stronger and has put nine pounds of strength on in the rehab and has a goal of six more pounds by the start of the season. We don't start the season till the first of November so she has plenty of time to keep working on getting back to where she was last July 31 when she
originally hurt the knee."

Nichols said UConn coach Geno Auriemma is planning a home visit to see Johnson on Sept. 19.

USA ROLLS IN OPENER
Those who think UConn has some one-sided basketball affairs, we present you the United States' first game in the FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship for Women.

The U.S. defeated the Dominican Republic 128-17, yes you read that correctly. It was 39-2 at the end of the first quarter, 78-7 at halftime. The UConn hit the 100-point plateau in the third quarter.

Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, who took an unofficial visit to UConn in January, led the U.S. with 21 points. Mosqueda-Lewis was 4 for 6 from the floor and 4 of 5 from 3-point range to lead seven players in double figures.