How Thompson measures up

By Greg Keraghosian
Assistant Sports Editor

Unless you're running for President of the United States, chances are that you're going to have a tough time estimating just how great you are in something. There's a fine line between patting oneself on the back and selling oneself short.
The case of Tina Thompson is no different. The USC forward is in her third season with the Women of Troy, and she has had her share of accomplishments. So even though the junior has a year left, the question can be raised: Just where does Thompson rank among the all-time greatest USC women's basketball players?
She will once again have her chance to prove her mettle when the Women of Troy open a weekend home stand against Oregon tonight at the Lyon Center at 8:30.
Thompson doesn't hesitate to answer when asked if she has yet joined that echelon inhabited by players like Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, Rhonda Windham and Pam and Paula McGee, who all dominated headlines in the 1980s and early `90s.
"Not yet, I don't think so," Thompson said. "I think Cheryl and Lisa accomplished a lot, and I guess a lot of people who played with Cheryl like Rhonda and the McGee twins. I don't think I'm even close right now to being rated among them."
There certainly are areas in which that statement is true. Unlike Miller, Leslie or Windham, Thompson has not won a Naismith Award, given to the nation's best player. Nor has she even been a first-team All-American, though she is contending for that distinction this year.
But her statistics would show she is making headway. She is eighth on USC's all-time scoring list with 1,499 points, and should be seventh by the end of the season. Also, her career rebounding average of 10.2 is third on USC's all-time list, behind Miller and Cherie Nelson.
Thompson does have one fan in her head coach, Fred Williams, who has been associated with the Women of Troy the last 10 years.
"She rates very high," he said. "She makes my top five category. It's not all about points but about rebounding and being consistent and being triple and double-teamed and still being able to make some things happen."
Thompson has connections to some on the all-time list. She was coached by Miller for two seasons before Miller resigned, and the two still keep in touch whenever possible.
But the player with whom Thompson has been most associated is Leslie, who was a senior during Thompson's freshman season. The Women of Troy went to the NCAA's Final Eight before losing to Louisiana Tech.
The two also played at Morningside High School in Inglewood, and though Thompson says she didn't even know Leslie before she came here, the current member of the USA basketball team still keeps in touch with her former teammate for occasional critiques.
"She gives me a lot of compliments, but just little things like staying intense and probably facial expressions--I'm good with those," Thompson said.
Since Leslie's departure two seasons ago, those former greats haven't been around to help Thompson. Listed at 6-foot-3, her shoulders had to handle a scoring load as heavy as what Atlas had to deal with.
Her scoring average last season was 11 points more than the next frontcourt player. The constant beating she took in the post brought her to the point where, as she said, "I was too tired to do anything."
It hasn't gotten much easier this year. Help in the frontcourt has still been sporadic, as her 22.9 point average is 14 points better than the next frontcourt player. And there's an ironic twist on that shouldered burden; Thompson recently had a shoulder injury to deal with.
"I think it's been a big-time adjustment for her," Williams said. "I think she is adjusting to that right now."
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That adjustment was clear early in the season, when before a Jan. 2 home game against Kansas, Thompson suffered an indignity she was not particularly fond of or used to: She was benched for the first half of that game for showing up late to the pregame shootaround.
The story goes like this: Thompson said the electricity in her room had gone off, and as a result, her clock had stopped. When she woke up at three that morning, she noticed that and set it again.
But she did so an hour fast, and as she was lying in bed watching a football game, she got a call from a team manager saying she was late, much to her surprise. It was her second tardiness this season, and Williams, who keeps a strict tab on tardiness, decided to keep her out of play for one half.
The Women of Troy actually led by a point at halftime, but lost the game, 82-77. Thompson insists that even though she felt her absence hurt team chemistry, there are no hard feelings. Williams counts the experience as part of the learning process for an emerging player.
"I think she learned that when she goes out in the business world, these things do happen," Williams said. "I think she has focused on that and said `I'm not going to let that happen again.'"
The great ones were keeping up with the incident as well. Thompson talked to both Miller, now a broadcaster for Turner Sports, and as Leslie.
"Cheryl called and asked me what happened, and I told her," Thompson said. "I talked to Lisa too, and she was like, `T, you have to be the first one to the gym' and stuff like that."
Near the end of that month, it Thompson left it quite clear she had rebounded from the setback. Against UCLA at the Lyon Center, she had the game of her life--49 points, just one shy of the Pacific 10 Conference and USC record held by Nelson.
Thompson also set a school free-throw mark by going 13 of 13 and had 15 rebounds, as the Women of Troy romped to a 96-77 win.
"I think it still hasn't settled in," she said of the game. "When I was playing I didn't even know I had scored that many points. I thought I had scored more than my average, maybe like 30, 34 points. But 49, I couldn't believe it. Even in my (postgame) interview, I was like, `I don't know.'"
But that moment has been a lone star. USC is only 11-12 overall this season, and for the first time in six of the years, it all but surely won't be in the NCAA tournament.
It's the lack of wins that Thompson says bothers her more than anything. She hasn't been able to relive the glory of her freshman year, and her patience has worn thin.
"Winning is the main thing I focus on, and it's bothered me, it's gotten to me a lot," Thompson said. "People say, `well you're scoring and rebounding, doesn't that mean something?' No, because we're not winning. `Well, you can be an All-American' and all this kind of stuff. Well, maybe not, because a lot of (making the team) depends on winning, not how many points you're scoring."
So Thompson plays on, unsure of where her team will be by the time she graduates, and unsure how she'll be remembered. Will she be the next link in USC's chain of greatness? According to her, it doesn't matter.
"If it happens, I'll be grateful," Thompson said. "But I don't think it's really important. I think the most important thing is getting a job, something to fall back on. Having that praise of being a great basketball player, I wouldn't mind if they said I was an O.K. basketball player."
For those close to Thompson, that debate would be a much easier one to handle.