ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050138
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
THE U.S. WOMEN'S basketball team wanted to play Brazil. Tonight, in the gold-medal game, they get their wish.
It is the game the U.S. women's basketball team has wanted to play in the Atlanta Games.
Not just the one for the gold medal.
The one against Brazil.
In the last game of these Games tonight, the women's gold medal will be awarded at the Georgia Dome not long before the Closing Ceremonies begin across town.
The 6:30 p.m. tip-off was to have been at noon, but NBC asked for some fireworks to lead into those that will light the sky later Sunday night over the Olympic stadium.
``If we don't win, it's a bust to me personally,'' said Dawn Staley, the U.S. backcourt sparkplug off the bench from Virginia. ``They have something we don't have, something we want.
``They're world champions. It's unfinished business.''
Still stinging from a frustrating 110-107 loss to the South Americans in the world championships last year, the U.S. women know that unlike the male Dream Team, they will have to earn their gold.
The United States and Brazil each are 7-0 at the Atlanta Games. They were in separate pools in qualifying play. The U.S. team, averaging 101 points per game in this tournament, knows what it has to do.
It must stop a woman who has posed, without her uniform, in the Brazilian version of Playboy. She is a 36-year-old guard, Hortencia Maria de Fatima Marcari Oliva.
Her first name will do.
``They're an up-tempo team, they play a lot of people, and we're going to have to play great defense,'' said U.S. coach Tara VanDerveer of what will be her last game with the national team before she returns to the Stanford University sideline.
``Defense is our team's strength, and I think it's payback time. We've worked really hard. We can't just show up and expect to beat this team. I think it's going to be a great game.''
The United States has won its seven Olympic games by an average of 29 points, and advanced Friday with a 93-71 triumph over Australia. Brazil beat the Ukraine 81-60.
One reason the U.S. players hoped so much to meet Brazil in the final is the Americans feel Hortencia and Co. purposely have avoided them. All U.S. requests to play Brazil in pre-Olympic tours were turned down.
Brazil feels it has a psychological advantage. Staley isn't sure. The Philadelphia native has returned home from Europe to play for the United States and help build the foundation for the fledgling women's pro league, the ABL, that begins play in October.
She calls today's game ``the biggest in my life.'' She's the only two-time college player of the year on the very talented U.S. team, and although she played in three Final Fours for the Cavaliers, they didn't win a title.
``Even if I did have an NCAA ring,'' Staley said, ``the gold medal would be the biggest athletic achievement I could ever earn.''
The United States won back-to-back gold medals in Los Angeles and Seoul before getting a bronze four years ago in Barcelona, losing to the Unified Team in the semifinals.
In five Olympics since women's hoops were added to the Games in Montreal 20 years ago, the United States has won two golds, a silver and a bronze, and has a 25-3 record.
``One more,'' Staley said, meaning a win for the gold medal.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB