Spent a few hours up at the XL Center for the U.S. national team practice and the focus of my story in tomorrow's paper is on Maya Moore being able to play alongside of her basketball idol, Tamika Catchings.

As you would expect, both Catchings and Moore were wonderful on the topic.

"She is awesome to watch, just her aggressiveness is something to admire," Moore said. "She is one of those player who you can feel the team elevates when she comes. She's a class act, very conscious of how she treats people just a nice person and somebody you want to hang out with. She represents herself and USA Basketball (very well)."

When I asked Tamika about how she is perceived by Maya, who is the only active college player in the U.S. national team poll, she reflected back to the 2002 World Championships when she was the new kid on the block just a year removed from a brilliant college career at Tennessee.

"It is really cool because I know for me watching the '96 Olympics, watching Sheryl (Swoopes), Lisa (Leslie) and Dawn (Staley) those were the players were I said 'oh my God, if I ever get a chance to play on the same team with them ...' Then in 2002, I am playing on the world championship team with them, goo goo eyed knowing to make the squad what I have to do. Now it is fast forwarded and I am that (player) for her and some other players and it is kind of cool to have an impact on them."

Catchings received one of the best compliments she could get from UConn coach Geno Auriemma.

"I said of all the players who have ever played who I have coached against, (Catchings is) the one I would to have loved to have coached the most regardless of what other school they went to, in the four years we competed against them I always thought that. If there is any player we can take from any school in the country."

Speaking of Moore, she is not concerned about falling behind academically when she is playing in the FIBA World Championships and Auriemma said Moore is mature and responsible enough to take care of things from the academic end when she is in the Czech Republic.

Moore said she is not planning to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship as she hinted she may attempt to do.

"There's nothing there, sorry," Moore said when she was asked about it on Thursday.

The deadline for applying is October 4 which happens to be the day after the FIBA World Championship final so even if she changed her mind, there would be no way for her to navigate her way through the arduous Rhodes application process.

She also said that she will not be getting an internship and she will be able to gradate without an internship.

"It is just a different way of doing it," Moore said. "There really wasn't a time in the summer to have a real internship. I was able to take a class which gave me the hands' on experience called 'best of sport'."

Auriemma was asked a couple of times if he was concerned about being away from UConn for as long as he will be as the U.S. national team coach.

"There would be nothing for me to do in terms of getting my team ready," Auriemma said. "If I was home, I'd be pretty much watching Chris (Dailey), Shea (Ralph) and Marissa (Moseley) handling the individual workouts. Amanda Kimball handles the strength and conditioning part of it. We are not one of those teams who does a lot early on, we are hoping our season lasts until April so that is a long time. (It's) more of a concern is trying to find a way to incorporate five freshmen into the mix and that is not going to be easy.

"I was talking to somebody and they said 'you have a lot of experience. Tiffany Hayes looks really, really good right now. She has two years of experience, she hasn't lost a game in college. Man, she looks great. Then you have Maya who has been unbelievable.' Then we just stopped. There's a lot to fill in and it is going to be filled in by players who haven't had the opportunity to do that. That is going to be something that is going to worry me while I am away. If I stayed home, there is nothing I could do about that."

I asked Auriemma for his reaction to the death of former Cincinnati head coach J. Kelley Hall.

"It is just incredible," Auriemma said. "I still don't know all the details. I don't know what happened. I knew who he was when he was an assistant for a long time, he had been around for a while. You get reminded a lot of what's out there and what's important. I come to practice and I am the happiest guy in the world to be at practice, I enjoy being here except when they don't play defense or rebound."

Speaking of the practice, the players taking part were Moore, former Huskies Asjha Jones, Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery as well as 2008 Olympians Catchings, Seimone Augustus and Kara Lawson. Lindsay Whalen, Lindsey Harding, Ebony Hoffman and Jayne Appel.

Carol Callan, the U.S. women's national team director, said that former UConn star Diana Taurasi should arrive (barring any traveling snafus by early Friday evening) and her Phoenix Mercury teammate Candice Dupree is expected to be in town later on Friday. Callan said details on Cappie Pondexter's itinerary are still being worked out while a knee issue will keep Kia Vaughn from coming to camp. There's an outside chance that Taurasi could play on Friday but Callan thought that was unlikely.