ZARAGOZA, Spain– Is the United States’ U 17 that much better than the rest of the competition in the youth World Championships here?
It would appear so, based on this past week’s pool play.
The U.S. have blitzed Tawain,119-45; Turkey, 84-66; and Egypt, 104-57, to finish unbeaten in Pool A and will be a 1 seed when the knockout rounds begin tomorrow with a round of 16 game against Argentina (0-3) from Group B at Utebo Arena.
The Americans have just too much talent, depth and international experience for opposing countries at the U 17 level. They have six new players who weren’t on last year’s U 16 team and may not shoot it well from the three (28 percent) but they are better than last year, when they had to rally from a 23-3 deficit to defeat Canada in the gold medal game of the U 16 Tournament of Americas in Chile, even without versatile 6-9 forward Jarred Vanderbilt, a starter on the 2015 team who did not participate in the tryouts because of foot injury.
To be fair, many of the better players in Europe have passed up this tournament to play up a year in the European U18 tournament.
But the Americans decisive victory over Egypt (1-2), a rising African power that was averaging 74.5 points and 56 rebounds in the first two games, here Sunday was typical of this team’s dominant potential. The U.S, which shot 44 of 84, jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first 2:24 of the game and then dominated the rest of the way. They put seven players in double figures. Point guard Markus Howard from Findlay, Nev. Prep led the way with 19 points on 5 of 9 shooting. Guard Gary Trent from Apple Valley, Minn. HS Trent scored 17 points and had three steals. Wing guard Troy Brown of Las Vegas Centennial High and 6-10 center Austin Wiley of Hoover, Ala. Spain Park each had 15 points and 11 rebounds. Jordan Brown, a 6-10 center from Rosedale, Calif. Woodcreek, had 12, 6-10 power forward Wendell Carter of Atlanta Pace Academy had 11 points and 9 rebounds and 6-8 forward Carte’Are Gordon from St. Louis Webster Groves finished with 10 points and 7 rebounds. Additionally, point guard Javonte Smart of Baton Rouge, La. Scotland La. contributed six of Team USA’s 23 assists while adding 5 points, 5 rebounds and two steals.
“We came out right away and really took it to them,” USA U17 coach Don Showalter said. “We need to do that to teams in order to get us going, and also to get other teams to understand that this is as hard as we’re going to play throughout the whole game.”
Showalter, arguably the best international youth coach in the world, is now 26-0 as head coach of the USA U16 and U17 teams since 2009. “From here on out we have to treat every game like it’s our last,” Howard said. “Like coach said, we have to treat every game like a NBA Finals Game 7.”
The U.S. has been starting Carter, Trent, Knox, Smart and Troy Brown and bringing Howard, Gordon, Wiley, forward Jarren Jackson and guard Colin Sexton off the bench. Sexton, the leading scorer in Nike’s EBYL, actually leads the team in scoring, averaging 16.5 points, but didn’t get time against Egypt.
Showalter had to do some experimenting against Egypt, shifting to a zone after two of his bigs — got into foul trouble in the first half. “We’re not really good in the zone yet,” he said. “So, we were just too lazy. Whenever we play man-to-man defense, we’re pretty good. Having said that, the reason we went to a zone was because we were in foul trouble. Once you get to halftime with two fours, you’re no longer in foul trouble. And then we played really good man-to-manthe second half. So, I was never worried about that.”
The U.S. has definitely improved from the start of the tournament and benefited from the lessons learned against Turkey. “We came out and kind of played to the other team against Turkey,” Troy Brown said. “We didn’t do the things we needed to do. Against Egypt, we came out with a different mentality, especially after coach got on me, Gary Trent and Kevin Knox. I felt that really got me fired up. It made us want to play better.” .
The U.S. have some feel for Argentina, easily defeating them during a scrimmage before the tournament.
Dick Weiss is a sportswriter and columnist who has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the Philadelphia Daily News and the New York Daily News. He has received the Curt Gowdy Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and is a member of the national Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He has also co-written several books with Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Dick Vitale and authored a tribute book on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
