COLORADO SPRINGS – USA Under-19 Coach Billy Donovan said Monday afternoon that he wanted to take a team to Prague that “can really pressure people all over the court, defensively.”
When USA Basketball announced the final 12-player roster Monday night after seven practices over four days, the University of Florida’s coach’s wishes appeared granted.
Five of those selections – guards Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State) and Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke), as well as frontcourt players Jarnell Stokes (Tennessee), Jerami Grant (Syracuse) and Montrezl Harrell (Louisville) – played for Donovan during the USA Under-18 squad run to gold during the 2012 FIBA Championships last June in Brazil.
Joined by seven new teammates, they’ll try to make it back-to-back gold when FIBA19-Under Championships get underway on June 27 in the capital city of the Czech Republic.
The linchpin of the squad, as he so aptly demonstrated during the two practice sessions I watched at the United States Olympic Training Center Monday, will once again be Smart.
But the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Smart – a consensus All-American and the Big 12 Player of the Year during his freshman season with the Cowboys – isn’t the only dynamic point guard Donovan and assistants Shaka Smart (the VCU coach was on Donovan’s staff last summer) and Tony Bennett (the Virginia coach replaced Gonzaga’s Mark Few for this go-around) will have at their disposal when the team opens preliminary round play on June 27 against Ivory Coast.
Nigel Williams-Goss, who is from Portland but spent his four years of high school at Findlay Prep in Henderson in Nevada, was a McDonald’s All-American and may prove to be the best playmaker in the Pacific 12 Conference for the University of Washington next season.
In fact, the parameters of that “best playmaker” might encompass all of college in 2013-14.
He was terrific on Monday, both as a defender, playmaker and jump shooter.
The same could be said of the player that turned out to be by far the biggest surprise member of the squad.
Based on what I saw Monday, and what people told me of how he played over the weekend, it was no surprise that 6-3 Elfrid Payton (who’ll be a junior next season at Louisiana-Lafayette although he will not turn 20 until Feb. 22 of next year) made the cut to 12 from a group that numbered 26 when players checked into camp.
The “surprise”, though, is that – despite two outstanding seasons for Coach Bobby Marlin – he remained well short of being on the radar of even the most hardcore of college hoops followers.
Marlin – who Donovan knew and respected from Marlin’s 1995-98 stint as an assistant at the University of Alabama – called the Florida coach and told him that Payton was worthy of an opportunity to try out for the squad.
Donovan said Monday that he had one of his UF staff members edit some game footage of Payton and he was impressed by what he saw.
He then forwarded the footage to Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim (the USA Junior National Team Committee chair).
With Tyus Jones (a U.S. standout in FIBA junior tournaments who will be a senior at Apple Valley High in Minnesota in the fall) unable to attend the trials because of family reasons, the committee decided they wanted another point guard in camp.
Like Donovan, Boeheim was impressed by what he saw of Payton’s game footage and Payton was his flight to Colorado Springs.
He’s not going to be returning to Louisiana for a while, though, after his Friday-Monday efforts here.
Joining the aforementioned Smart, Sulaimon, Williams-Goss and Payton as backcourt players on the squad are Florida sophomore-to-be Michael Frazier (who looked like as good a jump shooter as was in the gym Monday) and Justise Winslow (who will be a senior at St. John’s High in Houston in the fall).
The left-hander Winslow is listed at 6-6 and 210 pounds and will likely also swing up front, as well, with his impressive bounce and strength.
Joining Stokes (who didn’t look like the 6-8 he’s listed at but looked every bit – and more – the 250 pounds he is listed), Grant (who didn’t practice Monday because of strep throat) and Harrell (very impressive Monday) up front were Aaron Gordon (who’ll be a freshman at the University of Arizona in the fall), Jahlil Okafor (a senior in 2013-14 at Whitney Young High in Chicago) and Mike Tobey (a sophomore-to-be at Virginia).
In my humblest of opinions, Gordon, along with Smart and Payton, was one of the three most impressive players on Monday.
His spring, quickness to the ball and overall energy exuded at both ends of the floor bordered on stunning at times.
Is he a “3” (small forward) or “4” (power forward) when he suits up for Sean Miller and the Wildcats?
What does it matter? He’ll be on the floor as much, and as long, as anyone in Tucson next season.
Okafor, as heavily recruited as anyone in the prep Class of 2014, has received a bit of a rap – rightly or wrongly – for not always being as forceful and energetic on the floor as some believe he should be.
That wasn’t the case Monday, though – far from it, in fact.
Okafor (a player I’ve seen a lot of over the past two years) doesn’t look quite as tall as his listed 6-10 but might weigh in at a bit more than the 253 on the roster.
And Bennett’s 6-11 Tobey played like a guy who could prove to be the best “true center” in the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.
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