CHEKHOV/VIDNOE (2015 FIBA U19 Women's World Championship) - USA head coach Dawn Staley is fully prepared for the pressure to be ramped up at the 2015 FIBA U19 Women's World Championship.

While the USA have done what they have traditionally done and swept everyone aside during the early part of the tournament, the play-caller has issued a warning to her players ahead of the business end of the competition.

"First and foremost, we have to get our players to realise that we're not going to skate through this tournament," she said.

“We’re going to be challenged somewhere down the line, so [we] can’t led our guard down. - Staley

"We have to make sure that we’re focused.

"We've done a tremendous job at putting things in place for our team to be successful - whether that's imposing a curfew, or taking [the player's] phones at night to make sure they get their rest."

Now the USA will match-up in a Quarter-Final derby against Canada.

"You have to turn the page and look at how Canada has gotten better and better since the first time we played them in Spain [during preparation]," warned Staley.

"They're going to play 40 minutes of hard-nosed, tough basketball.

"For us, we have to continue to do what we've done throughout the tournament and that's use our bigs, keep sharing the basketball and our three-quarter court press has been tremendous for us.

"Hopefully we can continue to fine tune that, disrupt on both sides of the ball, and do what we do best, which is sharing the basketball and get the ball to our bigs."

The USA frontcourt has certainly shone brightly and led by captain A'ja Jones, they have been superb on the glass.

However, Staley is also buoyed by the improvement shown by her guards in the huge win over Argentina in the Round of 16.

"It was a prime example of us continuing to get better on both sides of the ball," she pointed out.

"Our ability to share the basketball, make the extra pass, something that we expressed to our team a game or two ago, we finally saw them move the ball and get players easier shots out there on the floor.

"Anytime we are open and taking practice shots, we are pretty accurate with it.

"We have a little difficulty when we try to make things happen and force things to happen.

"But we shared the ball and that's why we had five or six players in double figures - that's indicative of our ball movement.

"We had 24 assists and I think that was the largest amount of assists that we've had all tournament long.

"It's a good place for us to be, going into the most crucial part of the tournament," added Staley.

FIBA