FIBA U19 World Championship Second Round Schedule Announced

July 3, 2011 • Riga, Latvia

• Schedule

Twelve of the 16 teams competing in 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship for Men kept their medal hopes alive and advanced into the July 4-6 second round. FIBA announced the second round game schedule and the 3-0 and defending gold medalist USA Team will play Monday versus its neighbor to the north Canada (1-2), then meets Lithuania (2-1) on Tuesday and concludes second round action on Wednesday facing Croatia (2-1). All of the USA games are scheduled to tip at 7:30 a.m. EDT and will be played in Riga, Latvia.

The top three finishing teams from each of the four preliminary round groups saw their medal dreams stay alive. Advancing into second round to form Group F were the top three finishing teams from preliminary round groups C and D. Joining the USA are Group D teams Serbia (2-1) and Egypt (1-2), while Lithuania, Croatia and Canada move on from Group C. Second round Group E will be comprised of Australia (2-1), Argentina (2-1), Brazil (2-1), Latvia (2-1), Poland (2-1) and Russia (2-1).

Sixteen nations qualified for the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship for Men gold medal. The top four teams from each second round group advance to the quarterfinals that will be held on July 8. The semifinal games are slated for July 9 and the gold and bronze medal games, as well as the 5th/6th place and 7th/8th place games will be contested on July 10. FIBAtv.com will stream all of the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals games live.

The USA, which recorded wins over Egypt (115-60), Serbia (80-78) and China (82-66) in preliminary play, rely on a balanced offensive effort. Guard Joe Jackson (Memphis/Memphis, Tenn.) paces the U.S. scoring, averaging 14.3 ppg., and Jeremy Lamb (Connecticut /Norcross, Ga.) is adding 13.3 points. Forward Doug McDermott (Creighton/Ames, Iowa) is contributing 12.7 ppg. and 7.0 rebounds, and Tim Hardaway, Jr. (Michigan/Miami, Fla.) is scoring at a 10.3 points per game clip.

The USA after three games is outrebounding its opponents by 10.3 boards a game. In addition to McDermott’s effort on the glass, Tony Mitchell (North Texas/Dallas, Texas) is grabbing a team high 9.0 rpg., while centers Patric Young (Florida/Jacksonville, Fla.) and Meyers Leonard (Illinois/Robinson, Ill.) are credited with 7.7 and 5.0 rebounds, respectively.

Heading into the second round , USA and George Mason head coach Paul Hewitt knows there’s more work to be done.

“I think we’ve got to be more consistent offensively and stay away from those stretches where we’re soft with the basketball and we just become a jump shot shooting team with hands in our face,” said Hewitt. “When we attack the basket and execute our screening action we’re going to get drives into the paint which will make the defense have to figure out how they’re going to play us – are they gonna take away the drive which should open up threes, and if they try and take away the threes we should be able to attack the basket and attack the rim.” Assisting Hewitt on the U.S. sidelines are collegiate head coaches Randy Bennett of St. Mary’s College and Cliff Warren of Jacksonville University.