Michael Frazier II has achieved his summer goal.
The rising sophomore guard made the USA Basketball U19 squad’s final 12-man roster, the team announced Monday night following its evening training session in Colorado Springs.
“Getting down to 12 is the real hard part because in a lot of respects we [easily] could have kept 14-15,” said Florida and USA U19 coach Billy Donovan.
“There were some tough decisions, difficult decisions, but I think we feel overall that we have selected an athletic and versatile team. Our style of play will be an aggressive, up-tempo, running, pressing style. From an execution standpoint we’ve got to get better there, a lot of the other teams over there have been together for quite some time and that’s probably a strength of their teams, so we felt that we have to rely on some athleticism.”
As a freshman in 2012-13, Frazier averaged 5.6 points on 44.6 percent shooting in 18 minutes per game. Of players who took at least 100 shots, he finished with the highest three-point shooting percentage (.468) on Florida.
The 6-foot-4 Tampa native showcased his ability to crash the boards, averaging 3.1 rebounds per contest. His 34 assists were fifth best on UF.
The USA U19 squad will compete at the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championships in Prague from June 27 to July 7.
The team shifts its training camp to the Washington Wizards’ practice facility in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
Ryan Arcidiacono (Villanova), Damyean Dotson (Oregon), Marcus Georges-Hunt (Georgia Tech) and James Robinson (Pittsburgh) were eliminated from the final cut.
“Obviously there’s been a physical toll on them, but I don’t think you can underestimate the mental toll of these kids trying so hard to make the team,” Donovan said. “I think the focus up to this point of time by them has been ‘make the team,’ ‘make the team,’ ‘make the team,’ and we’ve got to now move it towards trying to win.”
Contact Landon Watnick at lwatnick@alligator.org.
Guard Michael Frazier II (20) drives down the baseline during Florida’s 77-44 win against Georgia on Jan. 9 in the O’Connell Center.
