The Terrapin women’s basketball team is used to playing against tough competition, but tonight’s exhibition game against USA Basketball takes things to a whole new level.

WNBA superstars Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird headline the U.S. women’s national team that will take on the Terps tonight at Comcast Center.

Tonight’s game is the first stop on an eight-game college tour for the national team and is the Terps’ only exhibition game before they begin the regular season against Princeton on Nov. 9.

“I think it will be an amazing test of character for us to see where we stand,” Terp senior forward Laura Harper said. “We have nothing to lose and everything to gain from this experience.”

The roster comprises 10 WNBA players chosen from 29 players on the national team.

Along with Leslie, Bird and Taurasi, guards Kara Lawson and Loree Moore, forwards Seimone Augustus, Kara Braxton, Swin Cash, Taj McWilliams-Franklin and center Katie Feenstra are scheduled to be on the court tonight for national team. On two previous college tours – in 1995 and 1999 – the national team went a combined 31-1 against its collegiate opponents.

Only Tennessee won, beating the USA team 65-64 on Nov. 7, 1999.

“It will be the best team we play all year,” head coach Brenda Frese said. “That’s a no-brainer.”

The most recent game was a 65-75 loss to CSKA Moscow on Saturdayat the 2007 FIBA World League Tournament in Ekaterinburg Russia.

While getting a win tonight might be a tall order for the Terps, it should undoubtedly be an experience to remember.

“I’m definitely looking forward to [tonight],” junior guard Kristi Toliver said. “Just to get on the floor in general going up and down, but to play against the best players that we will ever play in our lives is extremely exciting.”

“I can’t wait to play,” freshman forward Drey Mingo said. “I hope I don’t get my shot blocked too many times.”

The player the Terps seem most excited to play against, and the one who probably has the best chance of blocking their shots, is 6-foot-5-inch Leslie.

The three-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time WNBA Most Valuable Player is scheduled to return to the court tonight after missing the 2007 WNBA season when she had her first child in June.

“When you think of the WNBA, you think of her,” junior forward Marissa Coleman said. “She was there when it all started.”

Frese hopes that tonight, like other exhibition games, will help the Terps gauge their progress after the first few weeks of practice and show what the team’s strengths and weaknesses are.

The national team should expose weaknesses more easily than the Lake Truck All-Stars did last year in the Terps’ only exhibition game, an 80-64 win against the team of former collegiate players.

“I’d rather see games like this and that kind of competition compared to when you play an exhibition game and you win by 40 and kind of have a false sense of where you’re at in the season,” Frese said. “I’d rather know right away against the best professionals in the country where we’re at, what things we need to get better on, our offense, our defense. We’ll definitely know right away come [tonight].”

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