NIU woman’s basketball player E. C. Hill and head women’s basketball coach Jane Albright-Dieterle were part of the bronze medal winning U.S. women’s basketball team in the World University Games.

The World University Games was an international women’s basketball tournament which ran from July 7 through this past weekend.

Hill said it was a good experience playing and living with other top athletes.

“It was a great learning experience,” she said. “We had a great coaching staff.”

The U.S. team ended up the tournament with a 6-2 record. It defeated Japan, Israel, China, Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. The U.S. lost to Cuba 88-80 after failing to hold off a second half rally. The other U.S. loss was a 75-73 heartbreaker against China in medal competition.

Albright-Dieterle said Cuba was very tough.

“Cuba was an Olympic team minus one player,” she said. “They won in the Pan Am games.”

The U.S. beat Japan on July 14 and faced China in the medal round on July 16. The U.S. took the hard loss in that game but managed to defeat Lithuania 83-73 on Saturday to take the bronze medal.

Albright-Dieterle said Hill did well and was one of the leading players for assists.

“She’s did really good. Her role was to distribute the ball,” she said. “She didn’t need to score here.”

Hill scored 22 points and had 13 assists during the tournament.

Albright-Dieterle, however, was happy just to be in the tournament.

“It’s just real inspirational to me,” she said. “Sports bring everybody together.”