Tommy Lloyd, USA Basketball move quickly to put together U19 World Cup team

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — USA Basketball sent 13 of the country’s best young players home Monday, and it might be easy to pin that on Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd.

He’s the head coach of USA’s U19 team, after all, and his preferred style of play is partly dictating how the final 12-player roster will ultimately be determined.

Also, incoming Arizona freshman Koa Peat made the cut and is expected to play a significant role in the FIBA U19 World Cup, while UA recruiting target Christian Collins was also one of 18 finalists despite being only a 17-year-old rising high school senior.

But that’s not how it works, the way TCU coach Jamie Dixon and USA Basketball national team director Sean Ford explained it. Having guided two previous U19 teams to World Cup gold, Dixon says the roster decisions are made within the Junior National Team Committee, of which he is the chair this year.

“The coach really does what he wants to do and there’s some feedback,” Dixon said. “But it’s not like the coach is making the call. … (USA Basketball) didn’t want it to be the coach making the cuts or the one guy that it falls on.”

Plus, at this point at least, most of the decisions are pretty automatic. Dixon said there are roughly 10 guys who are likely to make the team, so it’s really just a matter of making the final two cuts.

But identifying those final two or three players can be tricky. Dixon says U19 “is the hard one” of all USA Basketball’s youth teams, not only because it is the highest level non-senior event in the world but also because it typically combines returning college players who hadn’t turned 19 on Jan. 1 with incoming college players and elite rising high school seniors.

Also, unlike how the top U17 players almost universally sign up for USA Basketball teams, top would-be U19 players sometimes head instead for the NBA Draft if they’re eligible or opt to start training with a new college team, as Arkansas-bound guard Darius Acuff did this summer after leading USA’s U18 in scoring last summer.

“A lot of times for college coaches ... the build for a national championship or an NCAA tournament run begins in June,” Ford says. “It doesn’t really begin in October or September, because they can work out with a strength and conditioning coach, and they can be coached by college coaches at limited times during the summer.

“And it’s not just incoming college freshmen anymore, it’s the transfers, too.”

Back when he led USA’s U19 team to FIBA gold in 2009, Dixon said the emphasis was getting players who had already had a year in college, such as a pretty good Washington State rising sophomore named Klay Thompson.

But those days are changing. While trimming from 31 to 18 players Monday, USA Basketball trimmed three of its seven returning college players, while keeping 5 of 13 rising high-school seniors. It’s possible one or two of those top-rated class of 2026 players — such as forward Tyran Stokes and guard Brandon McCoy — might even make the team.

“It’s trended more to the younger kids,” Dixon said. “It’s just not like how it used to be. You don’t know as much about them, but the flip side is that a lot of these guys have played through the (USA) program, so the coaches, the organization, know them.”

McCoy and Stokes were among the seven finalists named Monday who had played for the gold-medal-winning U17 team last summer, a group that also included Peat, BYU-bound forward AJ Dybantas and Houston-bound center Chris Cenac.

Meanwhile, all four of the players invited to camp who played for Lloyd’s U18 team last summer were also named U19 finalists: Purdue sophomore center Daniel Jacobsen, Michigan sophomore forward Morez Johnson, incoming Kentucky freshman Jasper Johnson and incoming Duke freshman forward Nik Khamenia.

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It’s a mix of experience on the floor, and in life.

“What’s happened is the young players have gotten better, so you’re getting these high-level high school kids,” Dixon said. “But I think the kid who’s still valuable is the kid who’s played a year of college. After a year of practicing college, they’ve just got something extra.”

In addition to players’ experience and talent level, the committee also has to evaluate personalities and mindsets, figuring out which players might best adjust to much smaller roles than they are used to with club, high school or even college teams.

Also, which players might have improved — or not — since their last USA Basketball experiences.

And, of course, which guys fit the up-tempo style of play that Lloyd is expected to run again this summer.

All parties weigh in to figure it out.

“It’s just like fighting through a screen,” Ford says. “You gotta talk early and often. We just stay connected on ‘Who do you like? Who’s coming to camp? What do you think of this?’; We’re always talking and we want everyone’s opinion, we want to go through certain things. You want consensus, and you respect each other.”

The Junior Team Committee started work right away, meeting on Sunday night after three practice sessions and again after Monday’s morning practice before the finalists were announced.

USA is expected to reduce from 18 finalists to a final 12-player team by the end of the week, giving Lloyd a full week to work with his players before they begin FIBA U19 World Cup competition on June 28 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The tournament will run through July 6.

“You want to put a team together that fits the best — what’s needed, what’s the coach feels comfortable with,” Dixon said. “It’s just a really talented group, and what really comes out who plays the best? A lot of the conversations when we all got the committee together was like ‘This kid’s played better before, but he’s not playing well now.’ “

In other words, in a youth basketball world that often emphasizes potential, USA Basketball doesn’t have time for that.

The final team will be in Switzerland before they know it.

“A lot of it is what did out here for the last three four days,” Ford says. “There’s always players where you say ‘He’s going to be good in a couple years.’ That’s great, but we need them to be good in the next three weeks.”