Tajuan Porter won’t be able to use a national team snub as motivation next year. That’s because the Duck sophomore will be playing on one this summer.
Porter was one of 12 players chosen Saturday by DePaul coach Jerry Wainwright to play on Team USA’s U-19 squad at the Global Games in Dallas starting Thursday and at the FIBA U-19 world championships to be held July 12-22 in Serbia. The U.S. men are in the same world championships preliminary round pool as China, Mali and the hosts, Serbia.
The U.S. placed fifth in 2003 and has not won the tournament since 1991.
The U-19 team played an exhibition game yesterday against the China Senior National Team, a team featuring Yi Jianlian, the No. 6 pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft. Led by Porter’s 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 5-of-7 on three pointers, the American youngsters won 91-75. He also led the team with four assists in only 19 minutes of play and stifled a late China rally with his fifth and final three-pointer.
“You can almost do whatever you want out there because the other team didn’t know us,” Porter said on USA Basketball’s Web site. “China didn’t know I could shoot. They were laying off me because they were focused on my speed so I was just shooting. When they started closing out on me I started penetrating and getting my teammates some open shots.”
Porter and the U-19 team open Global Games play against Team Africa Thursday evening.
Last summer, Porter was cut from the U-18 team by Washington coach Lorenzo Romar and the 5-foot-6 guard from Detroit said publicly he used that as motivation during his freshman season at Oregon.
Porter is one of at least three Ducks who will play overseas this summer. Seniors Mitch Platt and Ray Schafer are playing with Athletes in Action, in Germany and Australia, respectively. Seniors Maarty Leunen and Bryce Taylor will also be at the trials for the U.S. team for the Pan-Am Games. The trials are July 12-14 in Pennsylvania, and the team will depart for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil after training until July 21.