Women's basketball team team set for medal round

The team has won its five preliminary games by an average of 29 points.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Sitting on the gym floor, her sneakers off and back against the wall, Sheryl Swoopes looked and felt relaxed. Practice was over and soon she'd be spending the rest of the day with her 7-year-old son, Jordan.
Swoopes knows to savor such moments because, on the basketball court, things are getting tense in these Olympics.
The medal round is here.
First up for Swoopes and her teammates: a quarterfinal game today with Greece, not the strongest of opponents, but certainly the best supported.
"There's definitely more pressure on us now that we advanced," Swoopes said. "I think people expect us to come here and win the gold medal. We expect to win the gold medal and we're not going to be happy or satisfied with anything less than that.
"But it's going to be tough."
Seeks third straight gold
The United States has swept past everything in its path so far in its drive for a third straight gold medal. With strong inside play, relentless rebounding and harassing defense, the Americans won their five preliminary round games by an average of 29 points.
Though a bit costly because guard Katie Smith was lost with a knee injury, the games served their purpose of giving the U.S. players a chance to become a team. While some of the players trained together off last winter and spring, coach Van Chancellor never had everyone together until they assembled in New York on Aug. 2.
"Not to say I doubted our team, but there probably were a few question marks because we didn't have much time together," said Swoopes, who's playing in her third Olympics. "But to see how far we've come ... I'm very confident in every player we have on this team.
"I feel like every player deserves to be here. Every player on this team is going to contribute in one way or another, whether they play two minutes or 30 minutes or seven minutes."
Too many turnovers
The most obvious problem has been turnovers, an average of 19 a game. Too many passes have sailed out of bounds instead of into the hands of a teammate.
"We're turning the ball over sometimes because we're careless and then we are too unselfish," Chancellor said. "We're giving up shots. We ought to go ahead and shoot the ball instead of trying to pass to a teammate. It's the first time in history a coach has said we ought to quit being so unselfish."
The turnovers haven't been critical because the United States has forced so many itself with that nasty defense. The Americans are averaging 16 steals a game and have held opponents to 33 percent shooting.
"We're winning, we're playing well, our chemistry is great," Tina Thompson said. "We're moving forward. We're in the medal round, so this is kind of all or nothing right now. It's time to put it all out there."
Semifinals Friday
The United States-Greece winner will play the Russia-Czech Republic winner in Friday's semifinals. In the other quarterfinal bracket, Australia meets New Zealand and Spain plays Brazil. Australia was the silver medalist in Sydney and Brazil took the bronze.
The semifinal winners meet Saturday for the gold; the losers play for the bronze.