World University Games 2011 -- USA Announces First Cut

The First Cut is the Deepest...
USA Basketball modified their World University roster yesterday as the staff added Shabazz Napier from Connecticut (Tu Holloway of Xavier declined an invitation to tryout) and then trimmed the roster to 14, sending home eight players from eight schools (and four conferences). Players the Turk visited over the weekend included, Brad Burgess, a tall guard from the Virginia Commonwealth (CAA) that ran to the Final Four in April, Kim English, another guard from Missouri in the Big 12, Yancy Gates a bfc out of Cincinnati in the Big East, Kris Middleton from Texas A&M (Big 12), Tony Mitchell (forward) from Alabama (SEC), Northwestern forward John Shurna (Big Ten) and Jordan Taylor, a guard out of Wisconsin (Big Ten).

The Current Roster
As of August 1, the 12 who will continue to train in Colorado Springs include...

Name	Pos	Hgt	Wgt	School
Tim Abromaitis	F/C	6-8	235	Notre Dame
Marcus Denmon	G	6-3	185	Missouri
Ashton Gibbs	G	6-2	190	Pittsburgh
Draymond Green	F	6-7	230	Michigan State
JaMychal Green	F	6-8	225	Alabama
Scoop Jardine	G	6-2	190	Syracuse
John Jenkins	G	6-4	220	Vanderbilt
Orlando Johnson	G	6-5	205	UC Santa Barbara
Greg Mangano	F	6-10	240	Yale
Trevor Mbakwe	F/C	6-8	241	Minnesota
Ray McCallum	G	6-1	185	Detroit Mercy
Darius Miller	G	6-7	185	Kentucky
Aaric Murray	C	6-11	265	West Virginia
Shabazz Napier	G	6-0	170	Connecticut

Notable among the Big East survivors, Tim Abromaitis from Notre Dame, Ashton Gibbs from Pitt who led the U19 USA team to a championship in 2010, Shabazz Napier from Connecticut who was added at the last minute and La Salle ex-pat Aaric Murray who will sit for a season before lacing it up for West Virginia.

Next?
The team will continue two-a-days at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado through August 7. The last two cuts will come via an announcement of the official roster just before the team departs for China on August 8.

World University Games 2011 -- USA Announces Training Roster

Six Big East Players Invited to Tryout for the USA Team
Late last week USA Basketball identified the 22 college players who will tryout for the USA World University Games men's team, the training sessions to begin July 29 in Colorado Springs, CO. Two, Tu Holloway of Xavier and Jordan Taylor of Wisconsin have declined their invitations as of late last week. The twelve who are selected will represent the USA and should depart for Shenzhen, China, site of this year's games, on August 8. The training team roster will include...

Name	Pos.	Hgt.	Wgt.	DoB	YoG	College	Comment
Tim Abromaitis	F/C	6-8	235	9/17/1989	2011	Notre Dame	Graduated, eligibility rem.
Bradford Burgess	G	6-6	225	4/29/1990	2012	VCU
Marcus Denmon	G	6-3	185	3/20/1990	2012	Missouri
Kim English	G	6-6	200	9/24/1988	2012	Missouri
Yancy Gates	F	6-9	260	10/15/1989	2012	Cincinnati
Ashton Gibbs	G	6-2	190	1/19/1990	2012	Pittsburgh
Draymond Green	F	6-7	230	3/4/1990	2012	Michigan State
JaMychal Green	F	6-8	225	6/21/1990	2012	Alabama
Scoop Jardine	G	6-2	190	8/9/1988	2011	Syracuse	Graduated, eligibility rem.
John Jenkins	G	6-4	220	3/6/1991	2013	Vanderbilt
Orlando Johnson	G	6-5	205	3/11/1989	2012	UC Santa Barbara
Greg Mangano	F	6-10	240	10/28/1989	2012	Yale
Trevor Mbakwe	F/C	6-8	241	1/24/1989	2012	Minnesota
C.J. McCollum	G	6-3	165	9/19/1991	2013	Lehigh
Khris Middleton	F	6-7	215	8/12/1991	2013	Texas A&M
Darius Miller	G	6-6	185	3/21/1990	2012	Kentucky
Tony Mitchell	F	6-7	210	8/7/1989	2013	Alabama
Aaric Murray	C	6-11	265	7/3/1989	2013	West Virginia	Transferred fro. La Salle
Alex Oriakhi	F/C	6-9	240	6/21/1990	2013	Connecticut
John Shurna	F	6-8	210	4/30/1990	2012	Northwestern

The six Big East players include Tim Abromaitis out of Notre Dame, Cincinnati Bearcat power forward Yancy Gates, Pittsburgh point guard Ashton Gibbs, rising senior guard out of Syracuse Scoop Jardine, West Virginia's recent addition Aaric Murray and Connecticut forward/center Alex Oriakhi. Abromaitis and Jardine are fifth year seniors, having eligibility remaining due to red shirts. Murray requested his release from La Salle and transferred to West Virginia at the end of the 2011 season. He will be eligible to player for the Mountaineers in 2012. Gibbs was the point guard on the U19 team that won the World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand in 2009. Oriakhi was a member of Connecticut's 2011 National Championship squad, and will return for his junior year in September.

Others of Interest
Trevor Mbakwe played his freshman year at Marquette under Tom Crean in 2008. Mbakwe left the Warriors after Crean took the Indiana head coaching job in the summer of 2008, and spent a season at Miami-Dade CC, moving over to Minnesota to play for Tubby Smith in 2010. Tony Mitchell logged minutes with the U18 team that won the FIBA Americas Cup last summer. JaMychal Green played on the 2008 U18 team that won the FIBA Americas Championship in Formosa, Argentina. Darius Miller bucked a trend set by his Kentucky teammates by accepting the invitation to compete internationally this summer.

The WUG Staff -- Two for One?
In an unusual twist, the World University Games team will have two sets of three coaches. Tony Bennett (Virginia), Shaka Smart (Virginia Commonwealth) and Sean Miller (Arizona) will serve as court coaches during the team tryout period (July 29 through August 7), while Matt Painter (Purdue) will serve as Head Coach with Assistants Cuonzo Martin (Tennessee) and Brad Stevens (Butler) will accompany the team to China and direct operations during the tournament.

About the World University Games
FISU holds competition in over 12 different sports for college students. Shenzhen University is the host for the competitions in 2012. The games will be held from August 12 through August 23 this summer. 24 teams will compete in the men's basketball tournament, the teams divided into four pools of six teams each. Assignment was by a random draw, held in April. The pools:

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D
Brazil	Australia	Japan	Finland
China	Canada	Lithuania	Hungary
Czech Rep.	Hong Kong	New Zealand	Isreal
Germany	South Africa	Phillipines	Korea
Romania	Serbia	Russia	Mexico
United Arab Em	Turkey	Ukraine	USA

The competition will consist of a round robin play within each pool. After those five games, the field will recompose into three competitions. The eight teams with the fewest points (the bottom two from each Pool) will play a three round competition for places #17 through #24. The middle two teams from each Pool will play a separate three round competition for places #9 through #16. The top two point-earning teams from each Pool will advance to a quarter final round for medal competition. Winners will advance to a semi-final and final round, while the losing teams will compete for places #5 through #8. Every team will play eight games.

The 2010 NIT Tip-Off -- A log5 Look at the Last Day

Last Call at the Garden
The semi-final games have decided the match-ups for the last round in the 2010 Tip-Off Tournament. Pythagoras may have prevailed with absolute accuracy, but the exact route was not as predictable (and nevertheless very interesting), as Ray Floriani reported in the previous post. Looking ahead to the Third Place and Championship games...

	--Adjusted--
Team	Pace	Off.	Def.	PWP
VCU	70.2	109.6	95.6	0.828
UCLA	67.9	109.1	91.5	0.882

The teams appear to be fairly evenly matched, both have efficient offenses, with the difference coming in defense. Will Coach Howland be able to use his larger front line effectively against the smaller (but more outside oriented) Rams? The pace and log5 projection...

	Projected
	Pace	Prob.
VCU	70.1	39.1
UCLA		60.9

UCLA prefers a more deliberate pace, and will probably want something that allows them to get points out of their offensive sets. The projected pace (70+) is a bit brisk, but not outside the Bruins' comfort zone. Looking at offensive and defensive differentials I get, despite a rather high margin of confidence favoring UCLA (60.9%), a close scoring game. If VCU hits their threes (and those will come from guards Joey Rodriguez, Brad Burgess and/or Brandon Rozzell), then Bruins may well spend most of the game playing catch-up with the Rams. They will have to go for the extra possessions to make up any gap in the scoring differences. Virginia Commonwealth will want to take >40 of their FGAs from beyond the arc, while UCLA has been effective at defending the three point line. The Rams' extended cold streak from deep against Tennessee has to have folks wondering if the Rams can pull an upset. Coach Smart's team will have to shoot better.

The Championship Game
The Tennessee - Villanova Final should be the fastest paced game of the tournament, the teams going out at about 73 possessions (games have been a possession or so higher than projected so far). Tennessee is a team that can run with Villanova...

	--Adjusted--
Team	Pace	Off.	Def.	PWP
Tennessee	70.2	108.1	88.6	0.909
Villanova	70.3	115.0	88.8	0.951

Villanova is ranked #6 on PWP, while Tennessee is #30. The margin is wide enough to account for the relatively higher confidence level for a Villanova win (see table below). Other than that however, the teams appear to be fairly evenly matched, both have stingy defenses, the difference coming on offense where Villanova holds the clear edge. Both defenses register as elite, but their opponents have tended to look outside for points. Maybe the margins of scoring were wide enough to motivate the team down in scoring to fire away, but another explanation may lie in the opposition. Both teams have loaded up on mid/low majors so far, and many low/mid major teams routinely employ offenses that stress motion offenses that rely on the three point attempt. Tennessee utilizes the inside shot for 74% of their field goal attempts and nearly 56% of their points. The Vols lose over one-in-five of their possessions before shooting, almost half (49.8%) due to steals...

	Projected
	Pace	Prob.
Tennessee	73.0	33.8
Villanova		66.2

The offensive/defensive differentials and pace suggest nearly a 10 point margin of victory (for Villanova). Slowing Villanova's offense down while keeping his Volunteer offense in uptempo mode would be a huge challenge for Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl. A half-court approach however, would require a skilled point guard who could run the team effectively while directing the attack. Something outside of the Volunteers' comfort zone I suspect, and given the lack of a truly effective point guard, something of a work in progress with the Vols at this point. Both teams will go inside at every opportunity, thereby exposing their low post players to more opportunities for fouls and foul trouble. Both teams routinely win the battle for the boards, for Tennessee offensive rebounding provides second chance opportunities that are vital given their very average shooting efficiency for field goals. Who controls the boards, and more importantly, how many fouls (and on whom they are called) may a key to determining the outcome of the game.