US women hoops fall to USK Prague

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC (AP) - Tina Charles' 28 points weren't enough to help the United States overcome too many turnovers in a 83-77 loss to 2011 Czech League champion USK Prague on Saturday.

Swin Cash added 13 points and Brittney Griner had 11 for the U.S. (2-2), which also lost its last game to Ros Casares.

"Everybody has to play as a team," said Charles. "Everybody has to play together. There are no excuses as to why we lost. We have to play more together, collectively, and we have to execute better."

Trailing by a point early in the third quarter, Prague went on a 10-2 spurt over the final 5:05 of the period to take a 62-55 lead. The Americans had nine turnovers in the period, including six during Prague's burst.

The U.S. turned the ball over twice in its first four possessions of the final quarter, and was down 69-57 with fewer than 8 minutes to play. The Americans had one more run to make it 71-66 with 5:23 to go, but that's as close as they got.

"It was one of those things where today we were really just not on the same page," Cash said. "I think a lot of it was just timing. Sometimes we threw the ball to one spot, thinking that your teammate was going to be there and that just comes with having practice time and playing together. You can't use that as an excuse, but obviously you look at it as one of the issues of a lot of the turnovers."

Eva Viteckova scored 18 points to lead Prague while Katerina Elhotova added 14 and Delisha Milton-Jones had 11.

The U.S. will close out its European tour in Hungary against Hungarian Cup and Hungarian Championship winners UNIQA-Euroleasing Sopron on Sunday.

The Americans only have six players from the 26-person national team pool available for this tour. They added Sophia Young and Danielle Robinson to get the roster up to eight, but Robinson left after the loss to Ros Casares to play for her European club team.

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