Miller Mum About Olympics : Women’s basketball: Former USC player is surprisingly quiet about her prospects of making the U.S. team.

At first, her simple decree seemed incongruous.

Cheryl Miller, herself an occasional reporter, said she would not talk to reporters at the U.S. Olympic women’s basketball trials.

Yeah, right.

Hadn’t Miller spent her entire career at USC talking? The Trojan publicity machine never rested, threatening to overtake the country with Miller time.

Now, there’s a U-turn in philosophy, just when people are really curious about Miller’s comeback. Considered by many to be the greatest female basketball player ever, she had been away from organized competition since the 1988 Olympic trials. Her injured right knee wasn’t fully ready for the Olympics that year, and she was one of the final cuts.

This time, Miller is letting her playing do the talking.

It’s not that she is worried about taking attention away from the other players. For her first foray back into serious competition, she wants to maintain “focus,” according to Rhonda Windham, her friend and former teammate.

Miller could be nervous. Nancy Lieberman-Cline, at 33 the oldest player among 53 trying out, said she also used to get unsettled about this kind of a challenge.

“It was funny,” Lieberman-Cline said. “Cheryl and I were talking before the trials and she said to me, ‘Are you nervous? Are you nervous? I’m really nervous.’

“I said, ‘I’m too old to be nervous. You’re only 28. I’m 33.’ With Wood (Lynette Woodard), me, Cheryl and Pam (McGee), there’s a bond. A generation of basketball is here at the trials.”

McGee played with Miller at USC and on the 1984 Olympic team and is staging her own comeback. She was persuaded to try out by her twin sister, Paula, who also wanted to come to the trials but wasn’t invited.

After the Friday morning full-court workout, Pam McGee offered a positive assessment of Miller’s game.

“She was back to rare form,” said McGee, whose own game was praised by several coaches.

“Cheryl Miller is one of those natural athletes who can come back after being out for a couple of years. It’s the same thing with Michael Jordan. If he stopped playing for a couple of years, he’d still have it if he came back. He and Cheryl . . . they’re interplanetary players.”

Said guard Cynthia Cooper, another former USC player: “I’ve been able to watch her a little, and there are things she could do before that there’s no way she could do now. But I think she still has it. She can still play.”

It’s early in the trials for anyone to make a sure-fire prediction regarding Miller’s chances of making the team. Lieberman-Cline is a longshot at best, with McGee, 29, and Woodard, 32, having opportunities to be role players.

Miller showed flashes of her old form, despite being rusty. Late in the morning scrimmage, she drove into traffic for a layup, then later sank a crowd-pleasing turnaround jump shot.

Her last play of the morning ended prematurely when forward Sue Wicks hit Miller hard, off to the side of the basket. Miller was slow getting up and trotted to the sideline and checked her left ankle. Moments later, she was up and around.

Lieberman-Cline said she enjoyed the camaraderie on Friday, trading old stories with Miller.

“It’s like Magic talks about--you miss being one of the boys,” Lieberman-Cline said. “We miss being one of the girls. And you can make your legend grow here. Cheryl was saying she remembered when I did this and that. And you can say, ‘No, it was even better than what was in the newspapers.’

“I think this will be the way it is in the future. The nucleus of our team will be from 27, 28 to 30, 32.”