Eighteen players were called to participate in the USA Basketball U19 World Championship Trials in Dallas, Texas. After hard fought trials twelve members were left standing making up the official roster for Team USA. Included on this roster is Ohio State’s own David Lighty.
Buckeye David Lighty Part of Team USA
Lighty, will join seven other members with at least one season of college experience under their belt as they prepare to travel to Novi Sad, Serbia to represent the United States in the 2007 FIBA U19 World Championships. Players must have been born on or after January 1, 1988 to be eligible for the team.
DePaul University head coach Jerry Wainwright will be in charge of helping the team come together and stressed in a statement from USA Basketball the importance of time if the team is to have success.
"I was excited about the attitude that all the kids brought to Dallas. I think in a very short period all of the kids attending the trials understood the significance of what faced them and because of that they all approached the trials as if they were a part of the team. It was intense, it was competitive, but it also showed a lot about their character and how they played together. There was very, very little selfish play. I think they all benefitted from this experience and will be better players just for these couple of days," said USA and DePaul University head coach Jerry Wainwright.
"In terms of the team, I think the one thing you need to have in today’s basketball is versatility. We have perimeter players that can play with and without the ball. We have very mobile inside kids. I think we really benefit from the fact that the majority of the team has one year of college basketball under their belt and all of them come from programs where they’ve been coached and they already understand the physicality of what they will be facing. I think we’re a strong, athletic, very quick team that will play the right way and one that has chance to represent the country at a very high level.
"What everybody has to understand now is how important each possession is in practice. Because we have such limited practice time, in order to build a team and to deal with what we will face we really need to focus on each and every possession in practice so that we can be organized when we play in these games. We’ll certainly try to impress upon the kids that the teams we are going to play have practiced a lot together and we’re going to have to overcome that with team play and we’re really going to have to be intense and we’re going to have to be focused on each and every possession,"
Joining Lighty will be the following players. Darrell Arthur (Kansas / Dallas, Texas); Michael Beasley (Notre Dame Prep, Mass./ Frederick, Md.); Patrick Beverley (Arkansas / Chicago, Ill.): Matt Bouldin (Gonzaga / Highlands Ranch, Colo.); Stephen Curry (Davidson / Charlotte, N.C.); Jonny Flynn (Niagara Falls H.S. / Niagara Falls, N.Y.); Donte’ Greene (Towson Catholic H.S. / Baltimore, Md.); DeAndre Jordan (Bellaire Episcopal H.S. / Humble, Texas); Raymar Morgan (Michigan State / Canton, Ohio); Tajuan Porter (Oregon / Detroit, Mich.); and Deon Thompson (North Carolina / Torrance, Calif.).