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Welcome to “Good Morning, Illini Nation,” your daily dose of college basketball news brought to you by Illinois reporter and AP Top 25 voter Scott Ritchie, who gives his insights each morning on Brad Underwood’s team and college basketball in general.
U-18 National Team training camp is underway in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with 28 players, including Illinois big man Maures Johnson Jr., vying for one of 12 spots to represent the United States at the 2024 FIBA U-18 Americas Cup, to be held June 3-9 in Buenos Aires.
Here’s a video of Johnson executing a nifty spin move in the post and then drilling a turnaround jump shot over the head of Arizona State rookie center Jayden Quaintance (I think).
Illinois doesn’t have a very long history with the United States Basketball Association (though former Illinois alum Jerry Colangelo did coach the national team for a few years), but below is a list of past and present Illinois players who have played for the U.S. team in some capacity.
Olympic
Deron Williams (Gold, 2008; Gold, 2012)
FIBA World Championship
Tal Brody (1967, 1970), Rick Schmidt (bronze, 1974), Kiwane Garris (bronze, 1998)
FIBA Americas Championship
Deron Williams (Gold, 2007)
Pan American Games
George vom Saal (Gold, 1959)
World University Games
Craig Tucker (Gold, 1979), Jerry Hester (Gold, 1997), Corey Bradford (Gold, 1999)
FIBA Americas U-18 Championship
Dee Brown (bronze, 2002), Deron Williams (bronze, 2002), Jeremy Richmond (gold, 2010), Ayo Dosunmu (gold, 2018), Ty Rogers (gold, 2022)
FIBA U19 World Championship
Dee Brown (2003), Deron Williams (2003), Meyers Leonard (2011)
FIBA Americas U20 Championship
Brian Cook (Silver, 2000)
FIBA U21 World Championship
Brian Cook (Gold, 2001)
Scott Richey covers college basketball for The News-Gazette. Email him at srichey@news-gazette.com and follow him on Twitter: @srrichey.
