You read that right. No exaggeration or lies here.
Team USA’s U-17 National team is now in the Gold Medal game for the U-17 World Championship in Dubai after beating Serbia 89-68 but along the way Team USA’s youth had some dominating performances. Team USA beat China 113-71 two days ago. But in their most dominating performance, they had an 84 point victory over Japan four days ago. This included a 22-0 run to start the game and having a 44-6 lead in the first half. The USA bench outscored the Japanese bench 59-5 and USA dominated in the paint where they outscored Japan 86-14. All 12 players for Team USA scored with 6 of them in double figures.
In this game against Japan, Malik Newman (Callaway H.S./Jackson, Miss.) scored all 15 of his points in the first half and also lead the team with six assists. Jayson Tatum (Chaminade College Prep/St. Louis, Mo.), who dropped 10 points by halftime, came off the bench for the first time in the tournament and ended the game with a team-high 19 points. Diamond Stone (Dominican H.S./Milwaukee, Wis.) scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for his third double-double in four games and he also swatted six of the USA’s 10 blocked shots in the game versus Japan. Josh Jackson (Consortium College Prep H.S./ Southfield, Mich.) was a flawless 7-7 from the field and contributed 12 of his 14 points in the first half, while Henry Ellenson (Rice Lake H.S./Rice Lake, Wis.) and Terrence Ferguson (Prime Prep Academy/Flower Mound, Texas) contributed with 12 points apiece.
You would think a group of 17 year old kids winning by 38 after the first half would come out and just try and embarrass the other squad but in fact, reports are that the kids had immense amount of class and sportsmanship in this game.
Team USA U-17 Head Coach Don Showalter thinks so at least, who is now 20-0 in his Team USA U-17 coaching career.
“These guys did a great job of staying focused today, the thing we focused on is doing things the right way. We’re still working on getting them to do things the right way. When you respect your opponent, you still play hard. The worst thing you can do is disrespect your opponent, not play hard and make a mockery of the game. So, our kids really focused in on that and that’s what we wanted to do.”
Check out the box scores for both dominating games versus China and Japan for the US youth.
Team USA U-17 vs China
Team USA U-17 vs Japan
