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.

FIBA U19 World Championship -- USA Loses by 5 to Russia

USA 74 Russia 79
Down by 10, 30-40, at the half, Team USA launched a furious 11 point comeback in the third period to regain the lead, 53-52, going into the fourth period. Russia's #2 guard Dmitry Kulagin hit a two point jumper 23 seconds into the fourth period, and despite knotting the score twice (at 54 and again at 56) over the next minute and a quarter, the Americans never regained the lead, thus ending the defense of their 2009 U19 title with a five point loss. Connecticut's Jeremy Lamb and Russia's Dmitry Kulagin shared scoring honors by dropping 21 apiece. Kuligan shot 8-13 (5-6, 3-7) from the floor and 0-0 from the free throw line, while Lamb shot 9-22 (0-3, 9-19) from the floor and 3-4 from the charity stripe. Three Russians, 6-7 forwards Vladislav Trushkin (19 points) and Sergey Karasev (17 points) along with guard Alexander Varnakov (11 points), recorded double digit points while two Americans, Joe Jackson (13 points) and Meyers Leonard (11 points) also contributed double digit points in the American effort. Dmitry Kulagin recorded a double-double by leading all rebounders as well grabbing 12 misses. Tony Mitchell paced the Americans with seven.

Picking over the game boxscore to develop some possession-based stats for the game...

						FTA
	Poss.	Eff.	eFG%	OR%	TO%	FGA
USA	70.5	1.05	43.3	42.5	14.2	34.3
Russia		1.11	55.6	37.5	16.9	23.8

It Was the Defense...
Team USA's offense was good enough to get by today -- had they matched it with a strong defensive effort. Playing at a pace more to Russia's preference (a motion offense that set up perimater scoring), the Russians converted their possessions to points at a 1.11 rate. Converting their field goals at a53.6% (eFG%) rate throughout the tournament, the Americans "held them" to a disappointing 55.6% clip, the poorest American shot defense effort so far. While some may look to Team USA's lack of three point conversion -- they went 0-9 in the game -- perhaps more important was the relative ease with which the Russians converted their attempts, going 12-29 (41.4%, or a whopping 62.1% eFG%) from beyond the arc.

Bell Tones
Villanova's rising sophomore James Bell started his seventh tournament game, but logged just 10 minutes, all in the first half. Bell shot 0-2 (0-0, 0-2), scoring no points. He grabbed 3 rebounds (all defensive boards) and committed 3 personal fouls.

Who's Got Next?
With this defeat, Team USA is consigned to the Classification Rounds, and will play two more games, the first against Team Poland tomorrow, to determine where, between #5 and #8, the team will be ranked at the close of the tournament.

FIBA U19 World Championship -- USA Hammers Canada, Stays Undefeated at 4-0

USA 83 Canada 54
Team USA built a comfortable seven point lead, 21-14, over Team Canada in the first period but blew the game open by tacking another 16 points on to that lead in the second period, 25-9, to double up Team Canada, 46-23 going into the half. Villanova's James Bell broke out of his shooting slump to post a game-high 16 points on 6-9 (4-6, 2-3) shooting from the field. Bell did not get to the line, but the 6-5 wing became the fourth different USA player to lead the squad. For the four tournament games a different player has led the squad, three times pacing both squads in scoring. One other American, Doug McDermott (10 points) posted double-digit points as all 12 members of the squad logged double-digit minutes of playing time, and none played more than 20 minutes total. Tony Mitchell nabbed a game-high nine rebounds, with Bell just behind with eight and two other Yanks, Patric Young and Meyers Leonard, with seven apiece. Team Canada was paced by center Sim Bhullar's 15 points on 7-10 shooting from the field and 1-4 from the line. Bhullar is a 7-4 fifth year player at Huntington Prep in West Virginia. 6-4 guard Junior Lomomba and 6-6 small forward Dyshawn Pierre recorded 11 apiece. Bhullar paced the Canadians with seven rebounds, while Pierre nabbed six.

Picking apart the game boxscore to develop some possession-based stats for the game...

						FTA
	Poss.	Eff.	eFG%	OR%	TO%	FGA
USA	81.9	1.01	49.3	40.0	18.3	21.3
Canada		0.66	39.1	31.5	17.2	13.8

After two games of possessions in the 70s, Team USA kicked it back up into the 80s, most likely resulting from poor shooting efficiency (note the less than sterling eFG%, the Americans shot 33-75 from the field, and, Bell's contribution discounted, a paltry 4-18 from beyond the arc) and slightly higher (but not especially alarming) turnover rate. The key for this and the previous three games has been defense. Team USA has held their opponents to 0.80 points per possession (ppp) with shot conversion efficiency (eFG%) in the high 30s. That is outstanding defense, and coupled with strong board work, has allowed the Americans to win three of the four games by 16 or more points.

Other Group F Play Today

Team				Team	Diff
Egypt	81		83	Croatia	-2
Serbia	54		71	Lithuania	-17

The Lithuania-Serbia score, coupled with the earlier disappointing outing versus the Lithuanians, should be cause for concern for Team USA going into tomorrow's showdown. With a 3-1 record, the Lithuanians have to know a loss tomorrow will put a second loss on them going into the medal rounds. A win over Team USA will assure them (should they not lose again in preliminary play) of the top seed out of Group F.

Bell Tones
Villanova's wing James Bell logged 20 minutes of play and led the team in scoring with 16 points, as he started his fourth consecutive game for Team USA. Bell grabbed eight rebounds, one less than team leading Tony Mitchell in 20 minutes of play. He had a single personal foul, good news as fouls have been a cause for concern the past 2-3 games.

One of Bell's points was a dunk on a feed from guard Anthony Brown of Stanford. Looks like he has his bounce back.

Who's Got Next?
Team USA will have a rematch with Team Lithuania in Riga, Latvia on Tuesday. Team USA and Team Lithuania have played six times in international competition since 1997, Team USA holding a 4-2 advantage. These two squads faced off in Team USA's second exhibition game on June 28. Team Lithuania clobbered the Americans by 33 points (108-75) in a game that had had some wondering if this squad would be competitive in this U19 tournament.