TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE
-Team Defend will represent USA in FIBA U18 3x3
Kortney Dunbar |
Also, on this team is Gabby Green ( who has Louisville in her top 8) and Katie Lou Samuelson , the 3rd and final Samuelson ( her 2 sisters play for Stanford) although she has expressed interest in Louisville.
There's no question that 3x3 basketball is different.
First, obviously, there are only three players on the court, and second, that trio is playing halfcourt basketball. But on top of that, the USA representatives aren't selected from a large group -- instead, teams of four play a tournament, and the winning team represents the United States.
The four players, 18 and under, who will be at the FIBA U18 3x3 World Championship Sept. 26-29 in Jakarta, Indonesia are Notre Dame commit Brianna Turner (Houston, Texas/Manvel High School), Gabby Green (Oakland, Calif./St. Mary's High School), Katie Lou Samuelson (Huntington Beach, Calif./Mater Dei High School) and Arike Ogunbowale (Milwaukee/Divine Savior Holy Angels). They called themselves Team Defend and won all seven games they played, including a 21-10 win over the young St. Louis quartet of Alecia Sutton, Cierra Porter, Sophie Cunningham and Napheese Collier in the finals.
Team Defend will return to Colorado Springs Sept. 21-24 to get ready to defend the 3x3 World Championship.
To earn that honor, Team Defend went a perfect 7-0 in tournament play at the USA Basketball women's U18 3x3 National Championship in Colorado Springs, Colo., defeating Team Primus 21-10 in the championship game.
“It feels really good to win this, because last year we didn’t have to play anyone to get to the 3x3 U18 Worlds,” said three-time USA Basketball gold medalist Turner, who is ranked No. 1 in the 2014 Full Court Fresh 50. “But this year we actually went through the whole tournament process, you get to get a look at teams and play against teams. The team we beat in the championship game, we lost to them before (in a 3x3 pre-tournament), so there was even more pressure for us to beat them."
Team Primus was the youngest team in the tournament, with three 16 year olds and 14-year-old Sutton. The young squad went undefeated in tournament play until they met Team Defend in the championship game.
In addition, Suttion won the ball handling skills challenge, while recent Georgia Tech commit Zaire
Gabby Green |
Ogunbowale, who in June helped the USA capture their third consecutive gold medal at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship, was the tournament MVP. All four members of Team Defend, in fact, have won gold medals with USA Basketball, and all will be juniors or seniors in high school this year.
The third annual FIBA 3x3 U18 World Championship, which was billed as the 2011 FIBA 3x3 Youth World Championship in its inaugural year, is expected to feature 24 women’s teams and 32 men’s teams and the top teams will qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China.
In addition to the men’s and women’s tournament, the 3x3 U18 World Championship program for the weekend will also include skills contests and a mixed-team tournament with two males and two females competing on one team for their country.
(Thanks to fullcourt.com for the article idea...)
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Julia Fellerhoff |
Fellerhoff, a seeded player in the draw, beat Kaysie Hermsdorn of Abilene Christian 6-3, 6-0 before taking down Oklahoma State's Karyn Guttermsen 7-6, 7-5. Fellerhoff then beat ACC power Miami's Clementia Riobuena 7-6, 7-5 to earn a shot at Florida's Alex Cercone.
Fellow senior Rebecca Shine, who was also seeded, beat Pitt's Taylor Washington 6-1, 6-4 before felling Iowa's Katie Zordani 4-6, 6-2, 1-0. Her win over Miami's Kelsey Laurente with another tiebreaker (7-5, 2-6, 1-0) sets her up to meet Alex Chatt, a nationally ranked high school player.The two paired up as doubles partners and beat Pascarella and Youel of Northern Iowa 8-1. Next to fall was Indiana's Rubenstein and Fujimoto 8-1. This makes for a matchup with top-seeded Auburn's pair of Kaster and Pfeifler.
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