USA routs France for U17 World Championship gold medal, Jalen Green wins MVP
By ADAM ZAGORIA The USA is bringing home
By ADAM ZAGORIA The USA is bringing home
Trailing 28-21 after the first quarter, the
By ADAM ZAGORIA The USA U17 team routed
By ADAM ZAGORIA
R.J. Hampton is only 17 years old and he is already seeking his second gold medal with USA Basketball.
The 6-foot-4 combo guard from Little Elm (TX) captured a gold medal last year at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship. Now he’s among 12 finalists for the USA team at the 2018 FIBA U17 World Cup which runs June 30-July 8.
“It would mean a lot,” he said by phone this week. “Not a lot of people at 17 years old can say they’re a two-time gold medalist, so I really just want to represent our country and have USA stay on top.”
Hampton is a versatile player who can play multiple positions.
“Whatever role USA Basketball wants me to play, if that’s the one, two to three, even the four, I’m happy playing it, just to go to Argentina and represent my country,” he said.
The roster for the 2018 USA Basketball
After three days of training camp that
By ADAM ZAGORIA
The USA against Canada in the gold medal game was supposed to be the highlight of the week-long FIBA U18 Americas Championship in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Instead, it turned into just another USA blowout.
The Americans thrashed Canada, 113-74, Saturday night to win the gold medal.
It was the third straight time the Canadians finished as runners-up to the Americans in the event.
The Canadians beat the Americans in the semifinals of the FIBA U19 World Championship in Cairo, Egypt last summer, but that team was led by R.J. Barrett, who was not with the U18 team this week and will soon be at Duke for his freshman season.
“It feels good,” said USA U18 and University of Kansas head coach Bill Self. “I think that we saved our best for last. I thought we played great the first half, and then kind of pieced together the second half. But, guys played great. They played unselfish, they played hard and defended. And, we caught Canada on a night where they probably weren’t as good as what they have been, obviously, but I do think our energy had something to do with that.”
