Oakman, thanks for the thoughts on Celeste and Zia. Zia came in with a rep of "score first" mentality from what I had read. But watching her live showed that she is quite capable of involving her teammates. Loved the way that Celeste played through out the games I was able to watch on youtube. I am very excited for her to get on campus next season. No question that she will be a fan favorite and an outstanding player for Texas. Kinda sorry that you feel Horns don't have a shot at Cameron Brink, who I think is going to be an awesome post.
From what I hear Brink doesn’t have a list as of yet still wide open but I honestly don’t see her coming to Texas. The 20 class has a lot of options at that position so I would think KA will land a 5 Star recruit
No question that Gusters is the primary focus at the post for Texas and probably all of the Texas colleges, especially BU and A&M. But Brink is among the top players, if not the top player, for 2020. It doesn't hurt to touch bases with her while she is still open to all schools.
USA coaches talking about the upcoming game: https://www.usab.com/news-events/news/2018/07/wu18-preview.aspx Guess in addition to watching the game on youtube, looks like it will also be available on facebook.
Nice to see the local paper with a story about Sedona and the USA U18 team. It would have been nice of them to put in links or at least mention where people could watch the game. https://www.hookem.com/2018/08/01/texas-freshman-sedona-prince-competes-mexico-usa-basketball/
Prince didn't start but came in after the starting center got two quick fouls. She got two blocks, the first causing Argentina to run out of clock. Not sure they will give her that one.
Sedona ended the first with 3 blocks, four rebs and zero pts. They didn't give her credit for that first block and she missed the two shots she took.
38-15 at the half, USA on top. The U17 team might have spoiled me the way they were playing at the end. This U18 team seems to be playing more one on one but that's probably cuz this is just their first game. Starting center Olivia Nelson-Ododa picked up two quick fouls in the first quarter and then a third early in the second. Sedona ended the half with five pts, four rebs, and three blocks. Leading scorer is Peoples with six pts. Leading rebounder is Smith with five. Seven players had one steal. Davenport and Peoples each had one block.
Only Blackwell (13 minutes) and Smith (11 minutes) had double digit minutes. 8 players had between 7 and just under 10 minutes. Caldwell with 3 minutes played the least. Nelson-Ododa only played five minutes due to foul trouble.
USA shooting 58.6 from the field but 0-3 from BTA. They have the same trouble with FTs as the U17 team so far, only making 4-11 for 36.4%.
I am a bit surprised. It didn’t seem like he subbed much at all in the 2nd quarter until that line change with under 3 minutes to half - that’s what I get for never learning Spanish.
61-27 USA at the end of three. Play was better for the team although I think the second team played more cohesively than the first unit. Sedona is up to seven pts, six rebs and 3 blocks. Only one PF and no TOs.
87-42 USA. First game down and the defense was pretty good. The offense does need work. It's not as fluid as the U17 team demonstrated. Everyone played at least 11 minutes. Leading scorers were Blackwell and Smith with 13 each. Blackwell hit 2-2 from BTA and Smith was 1-2 from BTA. Sedona was the leading rebounder with nine. USA forced 30 TOs with 19 steals (all good). They had 27 TOs (not good). Sedona led with 3 of the team's 7 blocks. Boxscore: http://www.fiba.basketball/americas/u18women/2018/game/0108/USA-Argentina#tab=boxscore I liked Sedona's ability to get up and down the court. No question that she will be able fit in with the Texas running game. She does have range out to near the 3pt line. She didn't attempt a 3 in this game but had at least one jumper well past the FT line. Our posts are going to like her passing from the high post. And she is going to be the type of goal defender that is going to allow our guards to play with more abandon knowing that she is back there to erase mistakes.
I really wasn't paying too much attention to the Argentina players. I was focusing on the USA players. But it was hard to not to notice Camila Suarez (#10). She made some very nice plays on both ends.
USA had a 54-18 edge in points in the paint. The players listed as F's on the USA roster had 40 pts. They should have had more simply due to how small Argentina was. Chile is going to be even smaller inside. Our posts should have a field day if the ball is going inside. Chile should have trouble getting shots off in the paint. I would expect Chile to take a bunch of 3s. Argentina took 22 treys and 35 shots inside the arc while the USA had 51 shots inside the arc and only 9 treys.
