Young Named a Finalist for USA Basketball U19 World Championships Team
Monday, June 20, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Florida basketball's Patric Young (Jacksonville, Fla.) has been named one of 13 finalists for the 12-man USA Basketball U19 World Championships roster, USA Basketball announced on Sunday. Also representing the Gators, Scottie Wilbekin (Gainesville, Fla.) was not among the final 13 players. Florida was one of two schools with multiple players trying out for the team (California).
The selections, which were made by the USA Basketball Junior National Team Committee, came after three days and four training sessions at the USA U19 Team training camp that got underway Friday. Gator head coach Billy Donovan served as a court coach during the initial sessions of the training camp.
Training camp for the selected finalists continues Sunday afternoon through Thursday, June 23, with the official 12-member USA U19 roster being announced prior to the team's departure for Europe on June 24. The 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship for Men is being held June 30-July 10 in Valmiera, Liepaja and Riga, Latvia. The USA squad will look to defend the gold medal it won in 2009.
Young is one of five finalists who possess prior USA Basketball experience and one of two players from the 2010 USA U18 National Team that captured gold at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship (Tony Mitchell, North Texas). The Gator big man also participated on the USA Junior National Select Team that won the 2010 Nike Hoop Summit, along with Illinois' Meyers Leonard.
“I think our inside players are tremendous,” said head coach Paul Hewitt, also the head coach at George Mason. “We have some good balance and some guys that can shoot the basketball. Obviously, it was a hard decision to come down to 13, and we still have to make one more decision before we go overseas. The focus from here has got to be on defense. I don't think that we can be a team that's going to have the most continuity, so we have to be a really good defensive team and capitalize on our ability to get stops in transition.”
Young is one of six finalists who were named to their respective conference's all-freshman team in the 2010-11 NCAA season.
USA Basketball U19 Finalists
Keith Appling (Michigan State/Detroit, Mich.)
James Bell (Villanova/Orlando, Fla.)
Anthony Brown (Stanford/Huntington Beach, Calif.)
Jahii Carson (*Arizona State/Phoenix, Ariz.)
Tim Hardaway, Jr. (Michigan/Miami, Fla.)
Joe Jackson (Memphis/Memphis, Tenn.)
Jeremy Lamb (Connecticut/ Norcross, Ga.)
Meyers Leonard (Illinois/Robinson, Ill.)
Khyle Marshall (Butler/Davie, Fla.)
Javon McCrea (Buffalo/Newark, N.Y.)
Doug McDermott (Creighton/Ames, Iowa)
Tony Mitchell (North Texas/Dallas, Texas)
Patric Young (Florida/Jacksonville, Fla.)
*Signed NLI
