Tina Charles expected to be named to USA team

UConn senior center Tina Chalres is expected to be one of the 13 players named to the USA senior national team tomorrow that will play in a three-game exhibition series in Russia.

There are only 14 players eligible to make the team and UConn junior Maya Moore has already said she will return to school Monday night to resume classes.

So if the selection committee carries 13 players, no one will be cut.

USA team spokesman Caroline Williams said the team would be announced at some point Monday, but would not say who will be on the roster. The team, of course, will be coached by UConn's Geno Auriemma.

Charles, one of only three collegians invited to the tryouts at American University in Washington (Maya Moore and Stanford's Jayne Appel), earned her spot with stellar play in suuport of the team's top two post players, Sylvia Fowles and Candace Parker.

The selection to the national team will be the latest in a series of grand accomplishments for the center, the consensus choice as the likely No. 1 pick in the 2010 WNBA Draft.

She was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four in April after leading the Huskies to the national championship and she led the USA's World University Games team to the gold in Serbia earlier this summer.