Florida Gators rising sophomore guard Michael Frazier officially made the 12-man cut for the USA Basketball 2013 Men’s U19 National Team led by head coach Billy Donovan and set to compete in the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship from June 27-July 7 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Though the final roster was supposed to be announced on the last day of training camp (June 19), Donovan wanted to get the decision out of the way in order to make sure the Americans had as much practice time as possible before leaving the country.

“Getting down to 12 is the real hard part because in a lot of respects we easy could have kept 14-15,” Donovan said. “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.”

He continued: “Getting [the final cuts] behind us now and going forward we can get our guys focused on being the best team. 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.”



Unlike Frazier, who has never represented his country on an international stage before, Donovan is coming off a successful summer of 2012 when he led the U.S. Men’s U18 National Team to a 5-0 record and gold medal in the 2012 FIBA U18 Americas Championship. That victory earned the United States a birth in this year’s World Championship, and USA Basketball decided to bring Donovan back to coach a roster that includes five players from last year’s squad.

A new addition to the team, Frazier was chosen for his shot-making abilities, especially from long range. As a true freshman at Florida during the 2012-13 season, he shot 46.8 percent (52-of-111) from downtown and averaged 5.6 points per game.

Frazier is the only player from the state of Florida on the team. He joins familiar names like Louisville forward Montrezl Harrell, Oklahoma State G Marcus Smart, Tennessee F Jarnell Stokes and five-star high school prospects center Jahlil Okafor (Chicago, IL) and F Justise Winslow (Houston, TX).

Gators athletic trainer Dave Werner will do the same job for the Americans.

The United States will start out in Group D, which is also comprised of China, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Russia. The Americans will open up play at the World Championship against the Ivorians on Thursday, June 27 at 2:15 p.m. Eastern.