Rousseau Wins Gold With USA Squad
7/14/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
MALIBU, Calif. – Pepperdine women’s basketball coach Julie Rousseau, an assistant coach for the USA World University Games squad, helped the Americans bring back a gold medal in the recently concluded tournament.
The USA won the gold-medal game this past weekend with an 83-64 win over Russia and went undefeated with a 7-0 record in the tournament, which was held in Belgrade, Serbia.
Rousseau was thrilled with her experience, saying: “It was absolutely wonderful. Just to be part of international play, being in an Olympic-like atmosphere, having the opportunity to represent your country and being able to chant ‘U-S-A’, it was an amazing opportunity. To be there and stand for something more than just yourself or your school, but for your country, was really patriotic.”
The head coach of the squad was Charli Turner Thorne of Arizona State and the other assistant coach was Suzy Merchant of Michigan State. Rousseau plans on taking what she learned from her fellow coaches and using it to her benefit at Pepperdine.
“Being able to be in the midst of two other head coaches and see how they perceive and approach the game, I couldn’t help but learn from them,” she said. “We ran some of the same types of offenses that we run at Pepperdine, but saw some different twists and options that I’ll probably implement this year ... We preached to the kids defense and rebounding and that’s what the difference was in winning the gold medal. That’s what we do in our system here at Pepperdine, so it was good to see again how defense and rebounding impact the game and bring about success.”
Being able to represent Pepperdine on a team filled with BCS-level players and coaches was also a highlight for Rousseau.
“Representing Pepperdine was huge,” she said. “All these kids from big schools, and knowing that Pepperdine was part of it, was something that I really valued. Some of these Olympic-level athletes are telling me they want to come visit Pepperdine. If we got Pepperdine known to a few more people, then it was good.”
Rousseau went right from Serbia to the recruiting trail, but will be back in her office in Malibu later in the week for the first time in several weeks.
“I’m really anxious to get back with our kids, and see our freshmen for the first time who are there for summer school. It will be good to get a chance to interact with them and see how they’re getting acclimated ... I’m excited for the upcoming season. We’re going to be young next year, really bottom-heavy with five sophomores and five or six freshmen. I feel we’ll be talented, but young.”
Unfortunately, as an assistant coach Rousseau wasn’t able to come home with a gold medal of her own, but she is content with having the experience of a lifetime.
“The memories will last a lifetime and the experience was so much fun,” she said. “What it symbolized, winning gold for the country, that memory and that knowledge alone is worth its weight in gold.”
