How far could an American NCAA selection get in this tourney?

[Nikoo2]

Pretty strong team of non-NBA players finished fourth at the 2005 FIBA-Americas, losing six of ten games. With lesser talent I think the lack of previous experience playing together would be a much bigger obstacle.

I remember that team - Tyse Edney at the point, Charlie Bell, Lynn Greer and Chris Lang among others
Yet they were seeing eachother for first time as teammates had very very short training camp and still managed to beat Brasil and get the ticket to Japan, so it was mission accomplished.

 

[Giorgos Alexopoulos2]

i read an article which said that after the 2016 olympics,usa team will have only players from the ncaa?is it possible?

 

[carlo2]

The world university games rarely feature elite talent.

The u-17 and u-19 competitions are somewhat better examples. Part of the overall strategy for returning USA to the top of the world was getting more talented kids to participate.

US WUG teams did feature a lot of talents in the past, for sure not in recent years, as the best youngsters have more and more been drafted by NBA after their freshman season (if not after HS!).

U19 competitions are in fact a good example, when USA were able to field a true NT there (it was the case of 2013 team vs 2011) they won. I think U17 is bit different, as in these competitions there is no way of "interference" from pros and USA-Basketball is more "free" to put up (almost) the best possible selections, as it has happened in the first three editions.

 

[PaVi2]

If the US still wants to dominate the worlds and olympics, they should at least bring in 2nd stringer NBA talent to these kinds of competition or the top players of the NBA D-League, in order for them to still have a chance at winning all.. otherwise, do not expect U-22 or whatever to bring in the gold anytime soon (i.e. 2016 Olympics, 2019 WC)

 

[Raze Lupin2]

Not so far. More interesting an American non-NBA team like
McCalebb/Delaney/Brown
Langford/Hickman/Hackett
Weems/Smith
Dunston/Hines
James/Hendrix/Davis

Maybe some college players too

Sort of like the Dirty Dozen, which managed a pretty good result

This...

 

[ThePeraCar2]

I think Marcus Williams is best American PG outside NBA