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Dick Weiss

US U18 men issue warning to the rest of the world.

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.– USA Basketball’s U18 men’s basketball team offered a frightening warning for the rest of the world here yesterday when it destroyed seemingly helpless Uraguay, 156-58, Friday in the opening round of the FIBA U18 Americas tournament here at the Olympic Training Center.

   This country is not going to settle for anything less than gold medals in international grass roots competition and everyone else is playing for second.
    USA Basketball has evolved into the ultimate destination for the best young basketball prospect in the country. It has been a magnet for the class of 2014, which made it an the in thing to play for your country again. USA Basketball has changed the culture of the sport in the country, upstaging the powerful travel team culture by convincing the top seven  American high school players who were age eligible to participate for this country in U17, U18, U19 and U18, the Nike Hoop Summit newly minted 3×3 international world event.
      The overwhelming success that 6-11 center Jalil Okafor from Whitney Young High in Chicago, 6-9 power forward Cliff Alexander, 6-10 center Myles Turner of Trinity High in Bedford, Tex, 6-7 forward Kelly Oubre of Dallas,  6-7 forward Justice Winslow from St. John’s Houston,  6-8 forward Stanley Johnson of Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif. and point guard Tyus Jones of Apple Valley, Minn. have had sweeping the gold medals in tournaments like this and playing together as an unselfish, cohesive team instead of a group of me first All Stars have helped create a titanium pipeline for this country to achieve future Dream Team-like  success in a world where countries like Spain, Argentina, had been closing a once seemingly insurmountable gap.        
    “I think it all starts with the NBA players,” USA U18 coach Billy Donovan said. “I think once the best pros-players like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony– got involved and decided to bring back the respect, the pride to USA basketball, it trickled down to the other kids. I think Jerry Colangelo, (the general manager of the Senior team), did a great job of creating a national brand.”
     James, Bryant and Anthony have been part of the past three Olympic teams, lifting Team Basketball from the depths a bronze medal finish in the 2004 Summer Games in Athens to two consecutive gold medals in Beijing in 2008 and again in London in 2012.
     “The biggest emphasis on this team was don’t let down and follow in the footsteps of what the national team is doing,” Stanley Johhnson said. “They’re like our bigger brothers and we’re trying to fulfill what they’re doing on our level. So every game out, we have to play to our personal best and try to score on every posession.”

     Mission accomplished. 
     USA Basketball won the U16 worlds in 2011, the U17 and U18 worlds and 2012 and the U16 and U19 worlds the three two summers to reestalbish dominance on the world stage and exact the kind of carnage we are watching this weekend.
     America’s rise as a grass roots super power coinsided with the decision by FIBA to scrap the U20-and U21 world championships, which seemed less important in this country because so many elite high school players had already entered the NBA and were only interested in participating for the senior team. According to seniior team manager Sean Ford, it happened when FIBA replaced those events with the U16 and U17 competitions in 2009. which allowed USA basketball coaches and officials like Don Showater, the head coach of the US Developmental national team, and B.J. Johnson, the assistant executive director for USA Developmental Basketball, to scout the best travel team events, particularly at powerful Nike, to identify future stars at a young age and get them involved in the national feeder program. Showater has not lost a game at the U16 or U17 level in five cycles.
    The first group they brought in included guard Bradley Beale, center Andre Drummond and forward Michael-Kidd Gilchrist, the nuleus for USA Basketball’s 2010 U17 world championship.
     That was the year this current group were freshmen in high school.
      This, is for example, is Tyus Jones’ sixth USA basketball experience and he hasn’t even enrolled at Duke yet.  Jones, Johnson and Winslow are playing for a third gold medal in world championship championship.
      As the talent pool increased, USA basketball came to the conclusion that because it had limited 10 day window to prepare for an international event, it would no longer guarantee victory by simply putting an All Star game on the floor and began selecting the 12 players who coaches felt would buy into their system quickly. “I think some of these international age group teams who are playing in the world championships have been practicing for year,” Donovan said. “When you only have 10 days to prepare, you are not to to out execute them. So, I think you have to do is take them out of their style of play. That’s what Don Showater has done and what I try to do.”  
     That was never more evident that last year when Florida coach Billy Donovan coached an American team that had only one 2013 McDonald’s All American– 6-8 Arizona signee Aaron Gordon– and relied heavily on on two high school juniors — Okafor and Winslow– to a gold medal in a U19 world championship event in Prague, which the Americans had not won since 1996. Gordon was selected MVP and Okafor– the best grass roots cetner I’ve seen pay for the Americans– made the five man All Star team.
     While most European teams has traditionally relied on the three point shot as a staple of their offense, Donovan won by using stifling full court pressure which took walk it up European teams out of their comfort zone by making it more difficult to shoot the three, constantly turning them over in the middle of the floor and then attacking the rim. That team scored 68 points a game off two points shots.
     “I think some of these teams who are playing in the world championships have been practicing for year,” Donovan said. “When you only have 10 days to prepare, you are not to to out execute them. So, I think what you have to do is take them out of their style of play 
     Donovan, who is coaching his third straight age group world championship team, is playing the same way this summer, creating carnage with a 12-man roster that includes eight rising high school seniors and four incoming impact freshmen. The addition of Turner has made a huge difference in the back of the press. He was credited with just four blocked shots, but he altered at least 10 more. 
      Granted, in South American, where Brazil and Argentina appear to be the only teams to take the sport seriously, Uraguay will never be mistaken for a traditional international power. The team they brought up here was just too small, too young and not nearly talented enough to cope with the stifling full court pressure that consumed them.
      The Americans rolled from the start, setting five USA records in FIBA Americas U18 Championship play, including team records for most points scored, largest margin of victory (98 points), most field goals made (59), most team assists (40), and most assists by an individual after junior guard Jalen Brunson from Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill. dished out 13. Further, junior forward Luke Kennard from Franklin, Ohio High, a Duke commit, came off the bench to finish with a game-high 30 points after shooting 7-of-12 from 3-point range.
    The USA team, which had 10 players score in double figures,  saw all 12 members score by halftime after Johnson threw down a rim-rattling dunk with 2:40 left in the second quarter.
    Johnson, who will attend Arizona next year, is arguably one the two best prospects in this deep class, along with Okafor, a Duke signee who was too old to play for the U18s. He has played four different positions since ninth grade, led Mater Dei to four consecutive California state championships and has aleady won gold medals in the 2001 U16 and 2012 U17 World Championships.
     But he seemed more than happy to let other players shine in this blowout.

    “This is like an elite fraternity” Johnson said. “It’s so much of a team sport here,” Johnson said.  “To me, I love it. I feel like I’m at home when I’m here. If you get all the best players in the country and you get them to play as a team, that’s the biggest thing ever. The more winners you have the better. I think everybody here has won an state championship or an AAU championship. When you have guys like that, who know what it takes to be a team player, who know what it takes to make a team work, it’s always
   The USA had 10 players score in double figures and saw all 12 members score by halftime after Johnson threw down a rim-rattling dunk at the 2:40 mark of the second quarter. In addition to Kennard’s 30 points, the USA squad received 15 from Winslow. Chase Jeter, 7-0  center from Bishop Gorman High in La Vegas 6-5 guard Allonzo Trier of Findlay Prep in Las Vegas and Turner each scored 14. The 7-0 Zimmerman from BishopGorman shot 6-of-7 from the field and finished with 13 points; Forward Jaylen Brown of Wheeler High in Alpharetta, Ga.), Brunson and Johnson chipped in 11 points apiece; while 6-9 junior Tyler Lydon of New Hampton School added 10. Lydon grabbed nine and Turner had eight of the USA’s 57 rebounds to help the USA  outrebound Uraguay, 57-26, including a 19-5 margin on the offensive glass. Isaiah Briscoe from Rosselle Catholic dished out nine assists, while Tyus Jones contributed  six and Kennard had four. Further, Turner was credited for four blocked shots and Jones and Kennard picked off four steals apiece.
     In the tale of the tape, the USA scored 40 points off of 32 Uruguayan turnovers, while only giving up seven points on its 10 miscues; outscored Uruguay 86-20 in the paint, 16-2 on second-chance tries and 25-7 on the fast break. The USA, which received 95 points off its bench as compared to 31 from Uruguay, had 21 steals to Uruguay’s four. The Americans shot a sizzling 62.8 percent (59-94 FGs) from the field and an even 50.0 percent (13-26 3pt FGs) from 3-point, while Uruguay hit 33.3 percent (21-63 FGs) from the field. 

     “It was really impressed with their ability to share the ball. Donovan said. “A lot of times guys have a tendency to score their own points.”
      Those days are long gone.  

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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.

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