From our friends at USA Basketball:
Nike’s roster for the 2013 World Select Team that will compete in the 16th annual Nike Hoop Summit will celebrate the internationalism of the game with 10 players from nine different countries across four continents.
The 2013 Nike Hoop Summit, which will be played at 4 p.m. (PDT) on Saturday, April 20 at the Rose Garden in Portland, Ore., features America’s top, senior high-school players versus a World Select Team featuring many of the world’s best players age 19-years-old or younger.
Heralded prep forward Andrew Wiggins (Canada/Huntington Prep, W.Va.) returns for his second Nike Hoop Summit appearance, having led the World Team with 20 points in an 84-75 victory in 2012.
Sergey Karasev (Russia/Triumph Lyubertsy), who already has made a splash in international competition after earning a bronze medal with Russia at the 2012 Olympics, also will suit up for the World Team.
The World roster also includes: forwards Gabriel Deck (Argentina/Quimsa Athletic Association Santiago del Estero) and Livio Jean-Charles (France/ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne); guards Dante Exum (Australia/Australian Institute of Sport), Nikola Ivanovic (Montenegro/KK Buducnost), Dennis Schröder (Germany/New Yorker Phantoms) and Marlo Hezonja (Croatia/Regal FC Barcelona); and centers Mouhammadou Jaiteh (France/Maritime Boulogne) and Karl Towns, Jr. (Dominican Republic/St. Joseph H.S., N.J.), who has verbally committed to the University of Kentucky for 2014-15.
For a third-straight year, Roy Rana will lead the World Team at the 2013 Nike Hoop Summit. Rana is a seven-year veteran of Canada Basketball who was appointed head coach of Canada’s Junior National Team in 2012 and led the team to a bronze medal in the FIBA Americas U18 Championship in Brazil. The World Team assistant coach will be Serbia’s Marin Sedlacek, who is making his 13th Nike Hoop Summit appearance.
“So many former Hoop Summit players have gone on to become national and even global stars that the game is now firmly established as the most prestigious youth basketball event in the world,” said Lynn Merritt, VP Nike Global Basketball Sports Marketing. “Players such as Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki left their mark in the Nike Hoop Summit, and I’m excited to see who will be the next superstar. Nike is proud to partner with USA Basketball, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Rose Garden to again bring this year’s event to Portland.”
