People don't smile for pictures in St. Petersburg. The Russian winter winds freeze human skin in seconds, but scarves are often left at home. The stairs in apartment buildings sag from the constant pounding of ice-logged boots, while the electricity flickers on and off inside the narrow rooms. There are no career counseling centers in St. Petersburg. You stick with whichever job pays, or at least promises to pay. Svetlana Abrosimova was only 7 when she was singled out in a classroom and told by a teacher that she would become a basketball player starting right then and there. She began to cry.

	Svetlana Abrosimova averaged 16.6 points and 6.6 rebounds in '99.

Basketball brought her to tears last year, too. Different country -- different world, really -- but again it revolved around something an authority figure wanted. Frustrated by the lack of leadership on his young team, UConn's Geno Auriemma spent the season yelling at anyone within earshot. Sveta took it personally.

She left Russia just two years ago, walking away from a certain future for an uncertain one. She learned English in three months, stuffed her belongings into a single suitcase and left her entire life behind -- all for a chance to play hoops in America. She became the first player in UConn history to score 1,000 points by the end of her sophomore season. And she turned basketball into ballet, spinning and lifting her 6-foot-2 frame toward the hoop with breathtaking ease.

But oh, what Auriemma wouldn't give to endow his brightest star with just a little more fire, with just one ounce of his own abundant charisma. "If Svetlana had grown up here," he says, "she'd be one of the best female players to ever play this game." Instead, the All-America forward is just beginning to discover that distinctly American trait previously missing from her game. That readiness to scream and scratch to win. The kind of arrogance that separates great players from champions. In a word: attitude.

The game didn't come easy to young Svetlana, but working hard did. She grew up watching her father, Oleg, trudge off to a cold-as-hell shipyard each day, where he welded submarines with a blowtorch that shot noxious fumes straight up his nostrils. At a school that had served as a Soviet hospital during WWII, Sveta spent hours learning to dribble with both hands and post up on both blocks and shoot from all sides. There were no outdoor courts in St. Petersburg, so she put up a hoop in the family apartment and played against her mother, Ludmila. It was Ludmila who brought home how-to books by Bob Cousy and Wilt Chamberlain. And it was Ludmila who urged, "Be a great player, but quiet."

When Sveta was 10, a talent scout named Boris Lelchitski spied her dribbling away until midnight in an empty gym at a girls' basketball camp. "Who could be practicing so long and so late?" the Russian-born, American-based AAU coach wondered aloud to his friends who ran the camp. They laughed and told him, "It can only be Svetlana."

By the time Sveta was 15, Boris knew she was good enough to earn a college scholarship in the United States. He eventually sent a game tape of her to his friend Auriemma, who in turn sent assistant Chris Dailey to Brazil, where Sveta would play in the Junior World Championships. But Abrosimova's Russian coaches had other ideas. They had trained her for 10 years with one goal in mind: to make her an Olympian. They weren't about to wear her out now. Or show her off, for that matter. On July 9, 1997 -- Sveta's 17th birthday -- both the phenom and her suitor from Storrs watched from the sidelines as Russia played Cuba. Without Abrosimova, the Russians trailed throughout. Late in the fourth quarter, they had no choice but to bring out the big gun. Sure enough, Sveta sent the game into OT, then won it in the extra session. Dailey rushed to the phone. Abrosimova was in.

Of course, things were a little more complicated back in St. Petersburg. Sveta's father was earning the equivalent of $87 a month at the shipyard. Her mother made even less as a physical therapist. If Abrosimova stayed in Russia, she could count on collecting $10,000 a month as a pro. There were no such guarantees in the U.S. Her coaches spoke often of Semeka Randall, the human cyclone who starred for the Americans in Brazil. You can't measure up, they warned Svetlana. And when their prize pupil finally got up the nerve to announce she was leaving, she was treated like a traitor.

Sveta being Sveta, she responded to the hurt the only way she knew how: She brought her coach roses as a peace offering and studied her brains out for the SATs. Meanwhile, her parents sublet a room in their apartment to help save money. Abrosimova told herself she would worry about Semeka Randall if and when they met on the court. Then, before she knew it, she was kissing Oleg and Ludmila goodbye and boarding a plane for New York. In the car with Dailey on the way out of Kennedy Airport, Sveta marveled at all the traffic and buildings. But nothing awed her like Gampel Pavilion, the UFO-shaped dome in the middle of UConn's rural campus. As they passed by the Home of the Huskies at four in the morning, a weary Abrosimova thought to herself: I'll never get off the bench.

There are players, and then there are UConn players. Auriemma recruits five-star standouts, sure, but what he really covets is a team of 12 soldiers. "Coach believes you can develop into a good basketball player," says Kara Wolters, a former Husky now playing for the Houston Comets. "He can teach you that part." At first, Abrosimova was not the typical Auriemma player. During their first chat, the coach asked her what she liked about basketball. "Shoot," she said. "Okay," he replied. "But there are other parts of the game. What else do you like to do on the court?" Sveta didn't hesitate. "Shoot."

Abrosimova wasn't used to being a soldier -- although Auriemma teasingly told her that she looked like she had a gun on her back, waving her hands in anticipation of a pass as she ran up the court. She got impatient when teammates didn't see the lanes she saw. Sometimes, after other Huskies would score, Sveta scolded them for not giving up the ball. "I had always been the best player on the team," she recalls. "I wasn't used to all the talent."

Or the banging. Although Abrosimova was the best-conditioned athlete on the floor (she broke the team record in the mile by a half-minute), she was as fragile as her dimples. She'd never lifted weights before and could barely bench press the 45-pound bar. When an enforcer like Stacy Hansmeyer sealed her off in the lane during practice, she went down like a ton of bricks. "If she got hit, she'd hold her head and be out for a month," says Dailey, not really joking.

Make no mistake about it, though: The girl could play. In her first scrimmage, Abrosimova led all scorers with 14 points. She netted 13 in UConn's opener against Holy Cross. She scored 10 in the last six minutes against Iowa. By the end of December, she was first off the bench and second on the team in scoring behind senior captain Nykesha Sales. After putting up 14 in a loss to Tennessee, Sveta became a starter. The following game, she notched a double-double against Providence . . . in the first half.

In late February of '98, Sales went down with a torn Achilles tendon -- and Abrosimova went down with her. After scoring 167 points in 259 minutes in her first 10 games as a starter, Sveta scored 145 points in 324 minutes over the final 10 games of the season. "We were missing players and I tried too hard," she says. In an Elite Eight loss to N.C. State, Sveta scored just five points.

All would be forgiven, however, with the arrival of the TASSK Force last fall. UConn's five highly touted frosh -- Tamika Williams, Asjha Jones, Swin Cash, Sue Bird and Keirsten Walters -- had fans in the Nutmeg State booking hotel rooms in the Golden State. Abrosimova became the first soph ever named preseason Big East Player of the Year. Then she went out and notched 20-plus points in eight of UConn's first 15 games, including 39 against UCLA and 31 against Seton Hall. Teams put guards on her, she shot over them.

They tried forwards, she ran past them. Box-and-one? Sveta found the open woman. She played the 1, 2 and 3, and her defense improved dramatically. She even pulled up on the break every once in awhile. As the Huskies were posting a typical UConn start (13-0), Abrosimova was looking more and more like the typical UConn player.

But when the track meet came to a halt, Sveta still couldn't handle the rough stuff. She averaged only 8.5 points in two games against Rutgers, rattled by players tugging at her shorts and calling her names. And on national TV against Tennessee, she disappeared after losing a loose-ball wrestling match to -- guess who? -- Semeka Randall. Sveta finished with 11 points; UConn lost the game. "Did Svetlana react the right way?" Auriemma asks. "No. You need a smile or an elbow in the ribs when the ref's not looking. Or just play."

Like a neurotic mom, Auriemma later called Pat Summitt to complain about the scrum. But it didn't matter. The Huskies played six more games on national TV and wound up losing three. "It was time for me to step up," Sveta says, "and I didn't."

For all her talent and smarts (she was a '98-99 Big East Academic All-Star), Abrosimova knows she wasn't the taskmaster the TASSK Force needed. And while junior guard Shea Ralph is more than happy to play the role of emotional leader, she has missed 44 games the past three years with a bum right knee. Auriemma craves another sparkplug like Jen Rizzotti, the point guard who prodded UConn to a perfect season in '95. "Players get tired of the coach's yelling," says Rizzotti, now head coach at the University of Hartford. "But if another player is saying something, you can't help but listen."

Last season, Auriemma went so far as to show his team a video of Rizzotti and fellow firebrand Jamelle Elliott in all their blazing glory. Still it wasn't enough. "You'd love for the yelling to come from someone on the bench," Auriemma says. "But if I left it up to them, they'd never do it." When the injury-riddled Huskies fell behind against Iowa State in the Sweet 16, no one answered the call. Abrosimova finished the game with nine points and seven turnovers. "She has to lead that team now," says Sales, a member of the Orlando Miracle. "She has to think the way she thought as a freshman."

Is it possible? Can Auriemma help Abrosimova find her inner monster child? Over the summer, there were signs of a change. First, Sveta led Russia to the semis of the European Championships in June. (Traitor? Try hometown hero.) Then, while her proud parents were busy saving their rubles for a trip to Storrs and Senior Night '01, she showed her new resolve during UConn's tour through Europe. Auriemma's eyes twinkle as he recalls the day his star had her forehead busted open during a tight game. Sveta went to the locker room for five stitches, came right back out and unleashed "the best basketball I've seen her play."

In a meeting with Auriemma on Picture Day in October, Abrosimova assured the coach she'd be more vocal this season. And after months of private fuming about the Semeka Randall incident, Sveta now says she understands the importance of that play: "She was trying to give her team energy." UConn and Tennessee meet Jan. 8. "Next time," Abrosimova adds, "she better watch out."

Will Sveta walk the walk? During a recent pickup game, a male scrub intercepted a pass and turned upcourt. As he pulled up at the top of the key -- ready to get his move on -- a brown-headed blur bowled him over from behind, knocking the ball out of bounds. A few subs gasped in surprise. The victim slowly rose to his knees, but the culprit made no attempt to help. Instead, Abrosimova just stood there, hands on hips, as the hint of a smile crossed her face.