USA Basketball has announced its final roster for the U19 World Cup competition that begins next week in Cairo.
The 12 players who will go to Egypt include freshman Hamidou Diallo (Kentucky/Queens, NY); sophomore guard Carsen Edwards (Purdue/Atascocita, Texas); sophomore guard Kevin Huerter (Maryland/Clifton Park, N.Y.); forward Louis King (Hudson Catholic H.S./Columbus, N.J.); guard Romeo Langford (New Albany H.S./New Albany, Ind.); UNLV freshman center Brandon McCoy (Cathedral Catholic H.S/San Diego, Calif.); sophomore guard Josh Okogie (Georgia Tech/Snellville, Ga.); sophomore guard Payton Pritchard (Oregon/West Linn, Ore.); guard Immanuel Quickly (John Carroll School/Bel Air, Md.); forward Cameron Reddish (Westtown School/Norristown, Pa.); Kentucky freshman forward P.J. Washington (Findlay Prep/Las Vegas, Nev.); and Auburn sophomore center Austin Wiley (Auburn/Hoover, Ala.).
Four rising high school seniors– Langford, King, Quickly and Reddish– made the team.
Calipari could have gone bigger, but he decided to gamble of versatility with players who could play multiple positions. Making this team was hard, considering some of the candidates who were left off. Big names among the cuts included 7-1 center Bol Bol of Mater Dei High in Santa Ana; Kentucky freshman forward Kevin Knox II; 6-8 Temple sophomore guard Quinton Rose; 6-11 center Jordan Brown of Roseville, Calif. Woodcreek High and 6-11 freshman center Mitchell Robinson of Western Kentucky. Four rising high school seniors– Langford, King, Quickly and Reddish– made the team.
But it is hard to argue with the final decisions as Calipari opted to fill half the roster with players who had college experience or, in the case of Diallo, college practice time. .
“Every player on this team can play different positions and has different abilities,” U19 coach John Calipari of Kentucky said. “Whether they’re a point guard and a scorer or whether they’re wing and a point guard, or a wing and a power player. We only took two true bigs, which is kind of dangerous. But, we decided that if we had to, we could go small and go zone. We could do it offensively and if they didn’t have a real big guy, we’d just go, ‘P.J., you
just guard the guy. We’re going to go pick-and-rolls, inside pick-and-rolls and slips and you’re going to go play like a three anyway.’
“This is a really hard process. But it wasn’t just me selecting these guys, USA Basketball is involved. This was done by committee, and it went back and forth. Everybody was giving opinions. We went to midnight and we still couldn’t make the final decision, we had to sleep on
it.
“Having to select the first group (finalists) was really hard and we ended up keeping three or four more guys, because we weren’t ready to make a decision on those three or four. And then, we had couple of injuries, which ended up moving that number down. But, at the end of the day, there were three players for one spot and we had to choose one. We looked and said, ‘Okay. Who, if they had to, could help us?’ And that’s who we went with.”
The team will remain in Colorado Springs and will train through June 25 before departing for Egypt. Selections were made by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee. Athletes eligible for this team must be 19 years old or younger (born on or after Jan. 1, 1998) and U.S. citizens.
