Last spring when I got the call to be a coach of the USA Basketball U-19 World Championship team I was truly honored. The opportunity to work with DePaul University head basketball coach, Jerry Wainwright, who I have admired for how fundamentally sound his teams play and the success he has had. I also worked with Drexel University head basketball coach, Bruiser Flint, who had tremendous success at UMass and has a great winning percentage in the CAA at Drexel. This was an opportunity that I could not pass up from a basketball learning experience. The challenge of working with young top collegiate players and putting together a cohesive team to represent our country in just a few weeks and compete against the best in the world was exciting.

At the start, there were low expectations for this team. The U.S. had not fared well at this level in the past decade because our young amateur athletes were competing against talented professionals playing for top teams all across Europe. We went undefeated in pool player with a 6-0 record. We beat top ranked France and Serbia, the host nation, which were strong favorites to win the tournament because of their deep and talented rosters. I was truly amazed at how well our team performed. We played extremely hard on the defensive end and our guys were unselfish on the offensive end, sharing the basketball and hitting the open man. Heading into the gold medal game against Serbia, the coaching staff was impressed with how the team had overachieved thus far and how well they responded to expectations of representing our country. In the end, Serbia won, 74-69, to win the gold medal and we won the silver medal.

One of my players, Damian Hollis, was selected to tryout and then made the U-19 World Championship Team. Damian is the first player from George Washington University to play for a U.S. National Basketball Team. The experience and confidence that Damian gained this summer with the National Team and the hard work he committed to in the weight room this summer should give him the ability to both take on a much stronger leadership role overall and have a bigger scoring role for our team this season.

Overall, I had a great experience representing our country at the U-19 World Championships and am thankful for the opportunity. My greatest discovery from the experience was realizing how many great basketball players there are around the world who are playing this game. Every team had a least two or three players who could be top collegiate players or NBA first-round draft picks right now. The thing that most surprised me was the high level of athleticism that these foreign players displayed throughout the tournament. I want to personally thank USA Basketball, a first class organization, for the opportunity to be a part of, and learn from, a great coaching staff and for providing us the resources to allow us to represent our country well in international competition.