Sampson's USA Team Finalized

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. Featuring a talent-stocked roster, the 12-member 2004 USA Basketball World Championship For Young Men Qualifying Team, coached by Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, was announced today by USA Basketball. Finalists for the team have trained in New Jersey since July 16 in hopes of making the USA Basketball 20-and-under squad, which will compete in the 2004 FIBA Americas World Championship For Young Men Qualifying Tournament July 28 - Aug. 1. The team will get an early test as it takes on Canada's Young Men's National Team at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 25 in an exhibition contest in Saint John, Canada, before tipping-off tournament play against Venezuela July 28 in Halifax, Canada.

“This team's greatest improvement will be after our exhibition game,” said Sampson. “We've worked in practice. We haven't worked against another team. You can get your stuff in during practice, but you fix it during games. One of my favorite sayings is, what you don't know, you don't know.' And there's a lot I don't know about this team. But playing against Canada on Sunday and scrimmaging against Brazil on Monday will be huge for us.

“Eric Williams getting sick has affected our last cuts. With Curtis Sumpter, we felt like we had to have a little more size. That's really what it came down to. The difficult cut was Shannon (Brown) because he did such a great job from day one until today. And what it came down to was not having Eric on the team. We felt that if he wasn't going to make it, we need to replace him with more size. The one position we felt we could maybe sacrifice was our wings.

“We'll go with these 12. I think we've made good decisions thus far. This team is coming together. We're going to go up to Canada and have fun.”

The final 12-member 2004 USA Young Men's National Team includes: Hassan Adams (Arizona), Justin Gray (Wake Forest), Sean May (North Carolina), Adam Morrison (Gonzaga), David Padgett (Louisville), Chris Paul (Wake Forest), Mustafa Shakur (Arizona), Curtis Sumpter (Villanova), P.J. Tucker (Texas), Charlie Villanueva (Connecticut), Curtis Withers (Charlotte) and Bracey Wright (Indiana).

Sumpter, who was cut on July 21, was asked to return for Friday morning's practice after it was determined that Eric Williams (Wake Forest), who was sick and missed practice beginning on July 18, was unable to make the team. Sumpter returned to New Jersey with no guarantee he would be named to the squad.

Said Arizona's Adams, "It's going to be great. I always wanted to represent my country in basketball. This is a great opportunity for me. I'm glad that Coach Sampson, his staff and the (USA Basketball Men's Collegiate Committee) picked me to come here to try out. I went out there, worked out and worked hard. They picked me and that's a great feeling. Hopefully I'll be a part of a team that wins a gold medal."

Connecticut's Villanueva said, "It definitely feels good having USA across my chest. It's an honor, I'm going to take advantage of it and seize the opportunity."

Sampson is being assisted on the sidelines by collegiate head coaches Tom Crean of Marquette University (Wis.) and Dan Monson of the University of Minnesota.

Continuing its training in Saint John, Canada, on July 24 the U.S. will take on Canada's Young Men's National Team on July 25 in a 2 p.m. exhibition game at Harbour Station in Saint John. Tickets for the exhibition game can be purchased at the Harbour Station box office or by calling 800-267-2800 or 506-657-1234 in Canada.

The young American squad will scrimmage Brazil twice in Halifax, Canada, on July 26 and 27, before tipping off play at the 2004 FIBA Americas World Championship For Young Men Qualifying Tournament on July 28 at the Halifax Metro Center. The U.S. will compete against seven other teams from the Americas for one of the three Americas Zone qualifying berths for the 2005 FIBA World Championships For Young Men, which will be hosted next summer by Argentina. Featuring eight nations divided into two groups of four, the competition schedule, which will be released following the July 20 tournament draw, includes a preliminary round with round-robin play between teams in each group July 28-30. The top two finishing teams in each group will advance to the July 31 semifinals and the gold medal will be contested Aug. 1. Tickets for the World Championship For Young Men Qualifying Tournament can be purchased at the Halifax Metro Center box office or by calling the Metro Center box office at 902-451-1221.

The World Championship For Young Men and its zone qualifying tournaments are held every four years. Originally held in 1993 and known as the FIBA 22 And Under World Championship, it was designed for men 22-years-old or younger. FIBA lowered the age eligibility to 21-years-old or younger in December 1998 and changed the competition name to the World Championship For Young Men. The USA has qualified for all three previous World Championship For Young Men tournaments and has compiled a 22-2 overall record while winning gold medals in 1993 and 2001. United States squads have also compiled a 15-2 win-loss record in the three Young Men Qualifiers, winning gold in 1996 and silver in 2000 and 1993.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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