Brief step away from football to see what is happening with Ashton Gibbs and the USA squad playing in the World University Games.
Not much yet. After a claimed 30 hours of traveling to China, they had a thirty minute exhibition with Japan — who they pounded 96-56 in that brief space. The opening ceremonies for the WUG are Friday.
ESPN.com’s Andy Katz got Purdue and WUG Coach Matt Painter to give a brief quote on every player on the squad.
Ashton Gibbs, Sr., G, Pitt: “He’s a tough, hard-nosed player that simply gets the job done. He comes early and stays late. He’s a very good shooter, can make 3s and will knock down the shots for us. He’s our point like he was for us on the U-19 team.”
USA has another exhibition today before starting real games on Saturday. They are heavy favorites to win their group which includes Israel, Finland, Hungary, Mexico and South Korea.
Gibbs, naturally, was looking forward to the competition and the experience (and cynically one could suggest it serves as a scout trip for a potential overseas pro destination after this year).
“It’s a good experience,” Gibbs said. “I’m really looking forward to going overseas and playing with some of the best players in the U.S. I’m going to take it in stride, and just see another culture and see how other people live.”
Gibbs’ father, Temple, is — not unexpectedly — proud.
“This is very exciting for our family,” said Temple Gibbs, father of Ashton and Sterling – a freshman at the University of Texas – as well as up-and-coming 14-year-old Temple Jr. “It’s definitely one of the highlights of his career, playing for his country and getting to be around some of the best players and coaches in the country…. It’s just Ashton continuing to strive to be the best he can be.”
Gibbs has already earned several high-status honors, including All-Big-East First Team, a Wooden Award nomination and Associated Press All America Honorable Mention. His classroom achievements are equally impressive. Three times he has been a Big East Academic selection, and he is a candidate for Academic All-America his senior year.
And finally, since it is a basketball post, a quick media note on Steven Adams. ESPN.com still hasn’t seen enough of Adams to give him a ranking… yet. From a Dave Telep chat:
Steven Adams is a lot like this year’s Enes Kanter. We all know he’s good, but no one has seem him. I hear he’s coming to the US in November and if that’s the case we will see him and be able to rank him. Johnathan Govoni of Draft Express gushed over him at adidas Nations. We will try and get a look at him and we know he’s good but we haven’t seen him which is why he isn’t in our rankings.
Meanwhile the New Zealand media has noticed that the US basketball community has noticed Adams. Now that there is gushing about Adams and his potential to be a future NBA player, all seems forgiven for Adams not being a part of the Tall Blacks squad.
Adams chose to go to the camp instead of on the Tall Blacks’ tour of China in Europe, mainly because it required less time away from school and he needs to keep his grades up to ensure a scholarship at Pittsburgh.
It appears to have been a good move.
Yes. Yes it does.
