Arizona's Tommy Lloyd named USA Basketball's head coach for U18 AmeriCup tournament

In just his third season as a college head coach, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd has already reached the highest coaching rung on USA Basketball’s Junior Team ladder.

Lloyd was named Friday the head coach of USA Basketball’s U18 team for the 2024 AmeriCup tournament, giving him a chance to fit his international style of coaching into the FIBA game while leading a dozen of the nation’s top high school basketball prospects.

The appointment also means Lloyd will likely coach USA’s U19 World Cup team in 2025, since many of the U18 coaches and players typically roll into U19 play the following year, as former UA coach Sean Miller did in 2014 and 2015.

USA Basketball regularly rotates well-regarded coaches to its Senior and Junior teams for two or more year cycles, so the Wildcats will be represented this summer by head coaches of both the Senior team and top Junior team. Former UA standout Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warriors’ head coach, took over the USA Senior Team in 2022 and will coach the Americans in the Paris Olympics this summer.

En route to the FIBA Basketball World Cup last summer, Kerr and USA’s Senior Team made a training camp stop in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at the same time that the Wildcats were there on an exhibition trip. UA and USA players stayed in the same hotel while Kerr took in the Wildcats’ win over the Lebanon national team in their final game of the tour.

Lloyd’s experience this summer will be his first as a USA coach, though Lloyd served as a court coach for USA’s U18 training camp in 2022, coaching practice teams before roster cuts were made. Lloyd also previously served as a USA Basketball committee member.

Lloyd will be assisted on the U18 team by Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland and Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry.

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“This is a tremendous honor to serve as the head coach of USA Basketball’s Men’s U18 National Team,” Lloyd said in a statement. “I have always loved FIBA basketball and the different ways the game is played around the world. I look forward to this opportunity to now compete in a FIBA competition while representing USA Basketball.”

The dates and location of the AmeriCup, formerly known as the U18 Americas Championship, have yet to be set. The event takes place every two years, and USA has won 10 gold medals, including six straight.

While coaching the Wildcats a decade ago, Miller followed a similar path as Lloyd with USA Basketball. Miller was a court coach for the 2011 World University Games training camp, then an assistant coach for USA in 2014 for the U18 Americas Championship.

Miller was scheduled to also be an assistant for USA in the 2015 U19 World Cup but took over as head coach after Billy Donovan left Florida for the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder. Miller led USA to a gold medal in the U19 World Cup with a team that included guard Allonzo Trier, who had signed with UA and joined the Wildcats as a freshman in 2015-16.

On the 2014 U18 team, Miller coached Trier along with former UA guard Stanley Johnson and then-UA recruiting targets that included guard Isaiah Briscoe, guard Justise Winslow and center Stephen Zimmerman.