The only basketball former UConn star Asjha Jones will be playing in Europe will be as a member of the U.S. national team.

When I had last checked in with Asjha late in the WNBA season, she said she had yet to make a decision on whether she will play in Europe this summer. Following Friday's U.S./Australia friendly at the XL Center, I checked in with Asjha, who had become a mainstay for Russian powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg, about her plans for the winter.

"Naw, I turned down a lot of offers," Jones said. "I am just going to stay home, work on my shoes (she founded a new shoe line called Takera) and work on my health. It will be great to be home. Playing in Europe for as long as I did, it wears on you mentally and physically. I have had a lot of problems with my Achilles and all that kind of stuff. Right now, I want to get back healthy and where I used to being so next summer I can from the beginning give my team what they need."

I've been on record in the past as saying that I believe Jones should be one of the 12 players representing the U.S. at the FIBA World Championships. Although U.S. coach Geno Auriemma, who coached Jones at UConn, does not have a vote on picking the complete roster he does have a way of letting people know what he is thinking. I'm sure he has made his feelings known about what a player like Jones brings to the equation. Just in case anybody needed a reminder, seeing Jones muscle up against 6-foot-8 Elizabeth Cambage should have done the trick. One of the most memorable exchanges of the exhibition came when Cambage fell to the floor after getting tangled up with Jones and as she tried to get up, Jones gave her a forearm shiver. Jones got whistled for a foul on the play.

Jones has been asked to guard players bigger than her going back to her days at UConn. On a team with fellow 6-foot-2 players Swin Cash and Tamika Williams, Jones was the one who was asked to guard centers when the three were in the game together.

"Asjha knows how to play people like that from being in Europe all of those years and having played against a lot of those kids," Auriemma said. "Asjha knows how to play, she knows how to get you off of your spot and she knows how to not let you take advantage of your size against her."

When Jones was at UConn, she was a work in progress on the offensive end but as steady as could be on the defensive end of floor helping UConn to three straight Final Four appearances and two national titles in her final three college seasons. It was thee where she learned the tricks of the trade in terms of guarding physically imposing players.

"It takes me back to my college days, I am always guarding the big kids," Jones said. "There's a lot you can't do in the WNBA but in the international game you can be more physical. In college I was a 5 (center) on defense so from there they teach you how to play with your feet, not just with size so for me, I try to do my work early and keep them as far away from the basket as possible."

I was most intrigued about how an undersized U.S. team would play against Cambage. Tina Charles and Cambage had a game within a game early on as the two rising stars did some serious tussling in the low blocks. When Charles picked up a couple of fouls, Jones was the one summoned to lock up on Cambage while former Stanford star Jayne Appel also got some time against her. I asked Asjha about her impressions of not only Cambage, who led Australia with 18 points, but with Maya Moore, the youngest of the U.S. players who scored a game-high 16 points. Since Cambage will turn 20 on Aug. 18, she is eligible to be drafted and I've talked to multiple WNBA insiders who believe she is the second best draft eligible player behind Moore. Of course the question is whether a rebuilding team will take a chance on drafting Cambage and waiting on her to come over but from a pure talent standpoint, she should do second overall.

"They are going to be awesome," Jones said. "Cambage is a pro already and Maya has been playing with the pros for so long. I think they are young and they are athletic and they have a drive that you don't see in a lot of players. They are going to be awesome when they got older. They are aggressive, they know themselves, they know what they are good at and they go hard. They don't care who they are guarding, you they are playing against. I think when Maya moves to the next level, I think you will see no transition, she will be stepping right into it."

As I was waiting for Asjha, I cornered San Antonio Silver Stars general manager Dan Hughes and posed some of the same questions about Moore and Cambage.

"It is amazing. I was able to coach Penny Taylor when she was 19, Ann Wauters when she was 19," Hughes said. "They had all the pieces but not necessarily the body that I see with some of the younger players. Maya's body and Cambage's body, it is a physically strong body. Ann was developing, Penny was developing and they were both marvelous 19 year olds but these kids both have some very defined strengths about them. It's amazing, isn't it. Those kids have been taught well but they also have some presence about them."

GENO CHIPPING IN
Auriemma will be donating $50 for every 3-pointer the U.S. team hits during the World Championships with the proceeds going to ABC (All Baskets Count) charity.


Here is a part of a release on the official website of the FIBA World Championships about what ABC is trying to raise money for.

"The goal of ABC is to locate initial funding for the construction of a “House for All Generations” where young men and women between 18 and 20 years of age who are leaving state run children’s homes will live together and take care of seniors requiring assistance. The Czechoslovak Hussite Church announced its intention to donate the land for the construction with additional investments and operating costs to be provided by the non-government and non-profit civic associations ENYA (the Ecumenical Network For Youth Action) and Kazdy kos pomaha (the Czech version of ABC)."



DOTY CATCHING ON
When I am not covering UConn, I am the Yale football beat writer. Why am I telling you this, well some research for Yale's 2010 season led me to see that Kevin Doty, the twin brother of UConn guard Caroline Doty, had five catches for 66 yards in Lafayette's 28-24 season-opening loss at Georgetown on Saturday. Lafayette does not play Yale this season but begins a four-game stretch against Ivy League opponents with a game at Penn on Saturday.