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A blog on UConn women's basketball.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Training camp roster set

With the announcement of guards Sha Brooks (Florida), Alicia Gladden (Florida State) and May Kotsopoulos (Vermont), forwards Judie Lomax (Columbia) and Pauline Love (Southern Mississippi) and center Sarah Sowinski (Sacred Heart) being invited to training camp, it's fair to surmise that the Sun isn't planning to add a veteran off the waiver wire - at the current time.

With Sandrine Gruda not expected to join the Sun until early June because of her European and French national team playing commitments, two of the invitees could make the opening day roster. Anete Jekabsone-Zogota will also not be there for the start of camp.

There are some interesting stories among the invitees. I remember Brooks when Florida played at UConn in the second round of the 2009 NCAA tournament. She is a player and I could certainly see her sticking around for a bit especially for a Connecticut team lacking for guards at the current time. If Kara Lawson isn't able to go at the start of training camp because of a previous knee injury she aggravated during the recent U.S. national team training session and Tan White trying to get a flight to the U.S. at the current time, that leaves Montgomery and rookie Allison Hightower as the only ballhandling guards for the start of camp. Gladden is also interesting since she is coming off a solid season playing for Energa Torun in Poland. Kotsopoulos is more of a wing player who was a productive scorer at Vermont who may hold the distinction of being the first player in league history to go from interning to the team one year to trying out for the squad the following year.

Lomax was the Ivy League Player of the Year while Love is the only one of the roster camp invitees currently listed on the Connecticut Sun's roster on the WNBA website, not that you can read too much into that. Both were very productive but undersized posts who averaged double-doubles in college. Sowinski is a player I know the Sun coaches and others in WNBA circles kept tabs on.

Many years these invited players are little more than warm bodies which allow coaches to run a training camp but this year the competition should be fierce with those players knowing that there are spots available for them to earn.

I should be able to learn more when I head down to the first day of training camp on Monday in New London. It should be noted that 13 of the 15 players on the training camp roster at the start of camp where not with the team when the 2009 training camp commences as the six invitees are joined by rookies Tina Charles, Kelsey Griffin and Hightower, offseason acquisitions Montgomery, Lawson and DeMya Walker while White was plucked off the waiver wire last year. Asjha Jones and Kerri Gardin are the only holdovers.

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