USA Basketball national women playing in Hartford

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Geno Auriemma watched Australia light up his U.S. women's national team for 12 3-pointers in a weekend scrimmage. He'll have to wait a few months before he gets a chance to fix the problems he saw.

USA Basketball announced Monday that it has scheduled two exhibitions for the squad, on Sept. 10 and Sept. 12 in Hartford, against the defending world champion Australians and Spain, ranked fifth in the world.

Those will be the final tuneups before the teams head to Europe for the World Championships in the Czech Republic on Sept. 23.

Auriemma has made no secret that he's not happy with the lack of practice time, due to an arrangement that keeps America's top players with their WNBA teams until that season ends. That will mean some players may not join the U.S. squad until it is already in Europe.

"We're not playing against teams that you can just roll the ball out against and win ," Auriemma said. "These teams are good. They've got great players and they are well organized and they play well together. So that three weeks in September, when we're together, we've got to get it done."

The U.S. will open camp on Sept. 3, at a site that hasn't yet been picked. Auriemma said it will not be in Connecticut, but probably will be somewhere on the East Coast.

The team will play Australia at the XL Center on Sept. 10, Spain two days later and then head overseas. Auriemma said his team plans to play other exhibitions in Spain before the championships begin Sept. 23.

The team currently has 19 members. The pool likely will be expanded before the September practices and then trimmed to 12 for the world championships.

"There's certain ones that we know will be on the team, but we have three or four slots that we are still looking at," said Carol Callan, the director of the women's basketball program for USA Basketball.

Teams must submit their final rosters for the national championship on Sept. 21.

The current squad has seven former members of the UConn Huskies. Auriemma said he won't be keeping players on the team just because he coached them at Connecticut, but he's not going to cut a former UConn player just because others might perceive there are too many of them on his squad.

"It's like picking a Ryder Cup team," Auriemma said. "You know certain guys are going to be on it. Well, not if they start playing lousy or they get hurt. So the whole training camp in September playing the games here and going to Spain and playing in some of those tournaments, are all to get an idea of who fits in best between now and when we play our first game on the 23rd."