WKU Basketball: Robinson Selected to 2017 USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Cup Team
Incoming WKU freshman center Mitchell Robinson will be one of the 28 players on the 2017 USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Cup Team this…
Incoming WKU freshman center Mitchell Robinson will be one of the 28 players on the 2017 USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Cup Team this summer.
Mitchell Robinson will get an amazing opportunity to play for the gold alongside several other talented players age 19 or younger as the USA Basketball Men’s U19 World Cup Team looks to win a third consecutive gold medal in the Olympic event held July 1st through the 9th in Cairo, Egypt. This is a first for WKU hoops and to have a Hilltopper be selected to a national team is something for all of Hilltopper Nation to be proud of.
Robinson is one of 14 high school players that will be at the camp, as well as one of 6 McDonald’s All Americans. There will be several big names on the team from current college players such as Duke’s Marques Bolden and KU’s Charlie Moore to other high school standouts such as Bol Bol, a 7'1 center who is the son of the NBA giant Manute Bol. The full list of all the selected players can be found here. This team will have a lot of star-power and will help give the USA another great chance at a gold medal come July. The players will be coached by UK’s head coach John Calipari who has 3 players on the USA team that will be on Kentucky’s team this upcoming season. Training camp is held in Colorado Springs, Colorado and will begin June 18th and the final 12-member team is expected to be announced June 22nd and we’re all hoping Robinson will be on that team.
While there are several other talented young players, Robinson has already proved several times that he not only deserves to be there but that he can hold his own and compete at a high level. He had 15 points and 3 rebounds in the Jordan Brand Classic as well as 14 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 blocks in the McDonald’s All-American Game. He has always been able to finish at the rim and even though a lot of us WKU folks view UK negatively, you can’t deny that John Calipari knows how to coach big men so the time that Robinson will have under Calipari could be extremely valuable for him and WKU later this year.
Regardless of whether Robinson makes the final 12-man roster, this is a huge milestone for not only Robinson but all of WKU as a whole. WKU is proud of it’s Olympic history with the likes of gold medalist swimmer Claire Donahue and several other student-athletes that have competed at the Olympic level so seeing someone represent WKU in something like this early on is quite a feat.