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Wake Forest University announced today that forward Devin Thomas would be a participant in this summer's U19 training camp for USA Basketball. Thomas will travel to Colorado Springs, Colorado to vie for a chance to represent the United States in the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship in June. Thomas is coming off an outstanding freshman campaign where he led all conference freshmen in rebounding, while shooting 49.8 percent from the field. Those numbers were good enough to earn him a spot on the ACC All-Freshman team at the end of the season.
Thomas will be competing for a roster spot alongside a plethora of familiar faces, including Duke's Rasheed Sulaimon, Virginia's Mike Tobey, and a pair of Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in Robert Carter and Marcus Georges-Hunt. Other notable invitees include Montrezl Harrell from the national champion Louisville Cardinals and Jarnell Stokes from Tennessee.
The U19 World Championship team will be coached by Billy Donovan, who took over when Gonzaga's Mark Few withdrew recently citing other obligations. Donovan will be assisted by Virginia head coach Tony Bennett and Shaka Smart, the head coach at Virginia Commonwealth. They will be tasked with whittling down the 24 camp invitees to a final roster of 12. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said in USA Basketball's official release:
"We have a really impressive group of talented players and a large number of the players have USA Basketball and college experience. Selecting our 12-man U19 team will be extremely difficult, but the committee is excited and confident that we will be able to field another strong USA team."
Training camp will take place June 14-19 in Colorado Springs, with finalists named on the afternoon of June 15. The final roster will be selected by the USA Basketball Men's Junior National Team Committee, comprised of coaches Boeheim, Bob McKillop (Davidson), Matt Painter (Purdue) and Lorenzo Romar (Washington) as well as athlete representative (and former Villanova Wildcat) Curtis Sumpter.