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Wednesday / April 24.
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    • USA Basketball

    Two rising high school seniors and two incoming college freshman highlighted the 12-man USA Basketball U19 World Championship Team roster that was announced Monday.

    Friends, roommates and possible future college teammates Jahlil Okafor of Chicago Whitney Young and Justise Winslow of Houston St. John’s made the final cut, as did acrobatic incoming Arizona forward Aaron Gordon of San Jose (Calif.) Archbishop Mitty and Washington-bound point guard Nigel Williams-Goss of Findlay Prep.

    Also selected for the USA U19 World Championship Team were Michael Frazier (University of Florida/Tampa, Fla.); Jerami Grant (Syracuse University/Bowie, Md.); Montrezl Harrell (University of Louisville/Tarboro, N.C.);  Elfrid Payton(University of Louisiana at Lafayette); Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State University/Flower Mound, Texas); Jarnell Stokes (University of Tennessee/Memphis, Tenn.); Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke University/Houston, Texas); and Mike Tobey (University of Virginia/Monroe, N.Y.).

    Articles, Recruiting

    Stephen zimmermanThe past 48 hours have been a whirlwind for 2015 big man Stephen Zimmerman.

    The 7-foot Bishop Gorman (LV) High School star picked up a Kentucky offer Monday morning and has been courted by Duke, St. John’s, UCLA, Arizona and Ohio State, among others.

    “Just got offered a scholarship to play basketball from the University of Kentucky!!,” Zimmerman tweeted.

    During a phone interview Monday night, Lori Stevens, Stephen’s mom, told SNY.tv that her son spoke Sunday night with Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua, and then head coach John Calipari called Lori Monday morning and “extended the offer to Steven through me.”

    “That’s such an honor,” she added. “Kentucky with their history and Coach Cal, it feels like Stephen’s worked so hard to get to where he is and keeps working. It just kind of validates for him that his hard work is paying off and people are seeing it.”

    Articles, NBA Draft

    By JOSH NEWMAN
    Special to ZAGSBLOG

    Jamal OlasewereEAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The fact that Jamal Olasewere put together a tremendous resume consisting of individual and team accolades over four years at LIU-Brooklyn is indisputable.

    The 1,490 points, 110 games played, three NEC championships, three NCAA Tournament appearances and the 2013 NEC Player of the Year as a senior are all a part of the 6-foot-7 small forward’s legacy, but can the resume and the game he has cultivated help deliver him to an NBA roster?

    “I did have a good career and I just thank God for that,” Olasewere told SNY.tv after working out for the Nets on Monday morning, his first NBA workout. “He put me in a great place where I had the opportunity to flourish and I hope with the type of resume I put together, it can open the eyes at someone’s NBA workout.”

    Articles, NBA Draft

    By JOSH NEWMAN
    Special to ZAGSBLOG

    Nurideen LindseyEAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – When Nurideen Lindsey played basketball at Overbrook High School, the alma mater of Wilt Chamberlain, he says he did so not with visions of becoming a professional, but because he wanted to stay off the streets. That, plus one other very good reason.

    “I never had any idea that I would be working out for an NBA team,” Lindsey told SNY.tv after working out for the Nets. “I didn’t play basketball in high school to be a professional. I did it because my younger brother enjoyed watching me do it. He loved it and it kept me out of trouble.”

    Articles, Kentucky, NBA Draft

    GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Archie Goodwin admits that he wonders what it would be like to play with Kentucky’s loaded 2013-14 team, a team that features a slew of future NBA first-round picks.

    “Yeah, that’s going to be a great team,” the 6-foot-5 Goodwin said following a closed workout with the Knicks on Monday.

    “They’re definitely going to make a championship push with the talent they have and the guys they got coming in so it definitely would’ve been fun being a part of that.”

    Articles, Recruiting

    Dante Exum is one of the most intriguing names on the basketball horizon.

    A 6-foot-6 guard from the Australian Institute of Sport, Exum is currently projected as the No. 9 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft by DraftExpress.com.

    “He’s tremendous,” ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla, who spoke to Exum last week at the EuroCamp in Italy, told SNY.tv. “He’s in between being a point guard and a two guard. If he were in the States in the Class of ’14, he would be considered one of the best five players in the country.”

    Exum — who graduates from high school in November — is keeping his options open, including entering the 2014 NBA Draft and enrolling in an American college for the 2014-15 school year before potentially entering the 2015 NBA Draft.

    “Dante is being recruited by several schools and has not made any decisions regarding college choices,” his father, Cecil Exum, a naturalized Australian citizen who won an NCAA championship alongside Michael Jordan at North Carolina in 1982, told SNY.tv by email.

    Articles, Duke, USA Basketball

    Since 1995, the United States has only won the FIBA U19 World Championship once — in 2009.

    Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski and assistant Jim Boeheim made that message clear to the guys who tried out for this year’s U19 team and it made quite an impact on the players, especially Duke’s Rasheed Sulaimon.

    “We’ve only won this event, this age group, once [since 1995],” the 6-foot-3 Sulaimon told SNY.tv by phone from Colorado Springs, Colo., before he made the first cut to 16 players.

    “[They told us] this competition is definitely going to be stiff competition and they just wanted us to understand what we’re getting into and what to look forward to.”

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