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USA U19 Basketball Team Prevails Against Greece, Going to the Championships

ByShereen Rayan|

With Arizona’s Allonzo Trier back in the line-up, Coach Sean Miller’s team USA U19 took on Greece, today July 4th, in Greece and prevails.

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The first half started out slow for the USA Team. The camera didn’t pan to Coach Sean Miller in the first half, and you can just imagine what his face may have looked like as the Greek referee’s called one foul after another after travelling call on his USA team.

Wildcats fans on Twitter were not very happy about the calls being made on the court, ZonaZealots included. And Greece looked great playing fundamental basketball.  USA played man-to-man defense mostly in the first half in true Miller style.

Jalen Brunson, a Villanova commit, took over in the second half and pushed the team and the tempo. Jason Tatum’s dunk was a “Sportscenter Top 10” dunk.

Tyler Dorsey, five-star commit for the Oregon Ducks, made some acrobatic plays, and ended the half with a dunk. At half time, USA was up by five points over Greece.

Dorsey originally committed to Sean Miller and Arizona in 2014, but then after he didn’t make Sean Millers USA U18 team, and his ranking dipped from No. 10 to No. 25, Justin Simon committed to Arizona, and then Tyler uncommitted.  Dorsey played well in this game, best player on the Greece team by far and Wildcats fans and coaches were getting a feel for what we face in the Pac-12 with Dorsey and his Ducks.

Second Half was much closer.

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One thing was clear, more fouls called on both sides, a lot of missed free throws, and Greece can shoot the three, but this was the third quarter, things change in the fourth quarter.

With just 3:43 left in the game, USA had missed 11 free-throws and Greece 12.

USA’s Jackson, Tatum, Ferguson and Onuaku all had four fouls with three minutes left in the game. Playing against the home team, this felt like the Championship game, a lot of “high drama.”

Greece went cold on their three-pointers just when the USA team needed it. Brunson got poked in the eye by Dorsey, and made both of his free-throws without his contact lens. I was taken back to the Elite Eight game when Rondae and Stanley collided and Stanley ended up on the floor, deja vu. This time though, it wasn’t an injury, just a lost contact lens.

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Out of the USA time-out, the team slowed down the game, but a bad foul made by Ferguson on Dorsey caused some angst on the USA Bench, yes, Miller almost received another Technical.

The last two minutes of the game were pretty uneventful, Dorsey making a push, but it seemed his team had given up, banking on their three-pointers they just couldn’t make in the 4th quarter.

In the end the USA team shot 67% of their free-throws, Greece 56%, they were pretty close on three-pointers, USA 38%, Greece 40%, and what may have clinched it for the USA, the team shot 52% versus Greece’s 42%.

Dorsey’s  Belmont Shore AAU Coach Dinos Trigonis (Greek) explains the Greece connection for Dorsey:

Sean Miller was a proud coach after the game, “When things went against us, and we had a number of times when it did, we stuck together. We didn’t fracture. And that’s not easy to do in this type of environment with this young of a group.”

Two standouts from the game:

Greece –  Tyler Dorsey: 23 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal

USA – Jalen Brunson: 30 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal

USA moves on to the Championship Gold Medal game tomorrow against Croatia who beat Turkey earlier in the day 91-56.

Game Info: July 5th, ESPNU, 10:30am PST/MST.

GO USA! GO CATS.

Next: Top 5 Stanley Johnson Games at Arizona

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