No, it’s different on the basketball court, where 36 of the finest high school players in the country are gathered to make an impression on USA Basketball evaluators. And each other.

To say that the talent level is high would be damning by faint praise. After all, only one elite AAU team has more than two players here, and almost any BCS coach would take almost any three of these girls with no further questions asked - including what their names are.

Also in the second-story gym at the Olympic Training Center are 12 girls from Brazil, but the 102-43 loss they suffered in their first game Friday morning made it pretty clear that the story is an American one. It’s a story of competition, straight up, as the best guard the best. It’s a story of stepping up to a situation where any mistake, on or off the ball, is punished immediately - and sometimes in a really embarrassing manner.

Further adding to the stress is the new lines on the court. The three-point distance isn’t 19-9; it’s 20-6. That results in a lot of threes that come up short, as players who are programmed to shoot a certain shot from the three-point line find that it isn’t going in quite as regularly. The lane is also trapezoidal, with the blocks further from the hoop, and that pushes the rare post move a couple feet further out as well.

But that’s FIBA basketball, and the Youth Development Festival is the first step these youngsters take on the road to the Olympics. Players are evaluated not only for their raw ability, but for the way they handle FIBA rules, and most important, how they deal with sharing the court, and the ball, with other top athletes. Some youngsters can only be the star, and that me-first superstar style does not fit with the way USA Basketball operates.

Of course, the Youth Development Festival does have its flaws. The teams are thrown together for a day, and then they start playing. There are some "training" sessions that feature drills familiar to most ninth graders, and a couple practices to put in some basic motion and a couple inbound plays. Then, the ball is tossed, and the games begin.

So guards dominate the ball, and posts who aren’t aggressive never see it. And those guards have things to prove - some are looking to show they can shoot the three; others want to show off that left hand; and others need to deliver on some pull-up jumpers. So option one is for the guards to do what they need to do, which limits the options for everyone else.

So what’s a post to do? Take advantage of every time the ball does find its way to the paint by putting up a shot as quickly as possible. And go for offensive rebounds, since that’s a guaranteed way to put the ball in the big girl’s hands.

In addition, the strong post who doesn’t run the floor is at a serious disadvantage. On her own team, that power post will have guards who wait for her, and a pace designed to take advantage of her inside skills. In Colorado Springs, she will be breathing hard (don’t forget the 6,798-foot altitude) and, by the time she arrives at the block, at least one shot will already have been taken. The post who can run will at least get a look from the guards, but there’s a place in basketball for interior players who are not sprinters - but that place is not the Olympic Training Center.

Surprisingly, though, defense is played, especially on the perimeter. The guards are out to show each other who can shut down whom, and bringing the ball can be as adventurous as a trip down a mountain stream’s rapids. Post defenders tend to look more for blocked shots, however, than denying cutters or stealing entry passes, but the numbers of players who can leap and reject is so much higher here that the game changes dramatically.

Another change is the absence of crowds. There are no college coaches, and few parents sit in the three rows of aluminum bleachers on one side of the court. It’s just the players, the coaches, the officials, a couple media guys - and a USA Basketball evaluation committee. They won’t vote now, but their input will determine who gets invited to the next level of tryouts (the U18 team next summer), and the impressions made here will have an impact on the final roster decisions in 2008.

So the stakes are different, just like a lot of things in Colorado Springs, but the game is the same. In the end, those who play it best under unusual conditions will emerge, and since ‘unusual conditions’ is pretty much a definition of international basketball, justifiably, those who thrive here will be the ones USA Basketball will track most closely in the coming years.

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