With a recipe for success at the FIBA U19 World Championship that was carefully crafted when the team’s training started three weeks ago, there was no deviating from it Saturday night in the USA’s semifinal game versus U19 defending champion Lithuania. Utilizing a disruptive and effective full court defensive press, depth, balanced scoring and a transition offense that is down right frightful, the USA improved to 8-0 and earned a spot in Sunday’s gold medal game after eliminating Lithuania (6-2) 100-60 at the O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic.
The U.S. will face Serbia in the gold medal contest (2:15 p.m. EDT). Serbia, 7-1, suffered its lone loss to the USA, a 71-62 defeat on July 3. FIBA TV and ESPN3 are streaming all of the finals games live.
“I thought it (the USA’s focus and intensity) was really good,” said USA and University of Florida head coach Billy Donovan. “This was a game where our guys came out and really from start to finish played really, really good basketball and I was proud of them tonight.
“We gave ourselves an opportunity to play for the gold medal, that was the goal and now we’ll have a great challenge against a Serbia team that obviously we played in an incredibly hard-played game a couple of days ago.”
As has been the case in each of the team’s seven previous wins, the American offensive effort was a team one. Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State University/Flower Mound, Texas) officially was high scorer for the game with 18 points that came on 6-of-8 shooting, including 2-of-4 from 3-point. Joining him in double figures were Justise Winslow (St. Johns H.S./Houston, Texas), 15 points and nine rebounds; Aaron Gordon (Archbishop Mitty H.S./San Jose, Calif.), 14 points, four rebounds, two assists, two blocked shots and two steals; Nigel Williams-Goss (Findlay Prep/Happy Valley, Ore.), 11 points and a game-best five assists; and Montrezl Harrell (University of Louisville/ Tarboro, N.C.), 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
“These guys have bought into understanding that they’re all really good players and there’s going to be a level of sacrifice and unselfishness that’s going to have to go in and on any given night it could be anybody. Michael Frazier hasn’t particularly shot the ball well but you know the last two nights he’s made some 3-point shots that really helped our team. Oak (Jahlil Okafor) the other day against Canada was a force up front for us and made some incredible plays but today they double-teamed him. So it’s been different guys. I think we have to have an open mind offensively to take whatever the defense gives us and understand that on any given night it could be anyone scoring,” said Donovan.
Jarnell Stokes (University of Tennessee/Memphis, Tenn.) scored five points to help push the U.S. out to a strong start as the U.S. led 7-2. Lithuania made the first of the three 3-pointers it would score in the game to close the gap to 7-5, and the U.S., behind its havoc-wreaking press and five points from Winslow, ripped off 10-straight points in less than two minutes to take charge 17-5.
Carrying a 25-16 lead into the second quarter, the U.S. was up 31-22 when it finished off the second period with another impressive run, this time a 16-4 barrage that left the American squad in full control at halftime, 47-26. Michael Frazier (University of Florida/Tampa, Fla.), who made 4-of-9 3-point shots versus Canada Friday, continued to connect from beyond the 3-point arc and swished a pair during the run.
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