June 17, 2013
By Matt Winkeljohn
Sting Daily
Marcus Georges-Hunt was a little lonely Monday afternoon in Colorado Springs. His Georgia Tech teammate, after all, had been cut the day before in tryouts for the USA Basketball Under-19 squad for the FIBA World Championships.
Yet where Robert Carter Jr. apparently drew some sort of an infection that slowed him down, Georges-Hunt kept grinding and his versatility carried him to today’s last round. USA Basketball officials, led by U-19 coach Billy Donovan of Florida, pared 26 candidates to 16 Sunday, and by Monday evening or Tuesday morning, the goal was to trim the roster to 12.
That’ll be the team that will compete June 26-July 6 in the FIBA Worlds in Prague, Czech Republic.
The young Americans were to have a workout/tryout Sunday evening at the USA Olympics Training Center, so Georges-Hunt was reluctant to predict his future.
He felt good, though, about what he’d already done.
“I played well,” he said. “I performed some little things that they asked me to do. Loose balls. Defensive wise . . . Pay attention to detail. Defense.”
Georges-Hunt was about to take a nap before the evening session.
He was a bit bummed, however, that Carter wasn’t around.
“I told him, ‘Don’t put your head down. Just go back to Atlanta, and keep working hard,’ ” Georges-Hunt said. “Everything happens for a reason. He told me he wasn’t really feeling good. He was sweating and stuff for no reason.”
