Oregon Tech head coach Dan Miles served as a court coach at the Team USA 19U Training Camp.
OIT's Miles Helped Pick U-19 USA Hoop Team
When the United States played Egypt in the 19-under men's world basketball championships, no one in Klamath Falls watched with more interest than Oregon Tech coach Danny Miles.
He helped pick the team.
Miles served as one of the three court coaches at the recent tryout camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Miles also was one of 10 coaches to help select the team.
"I helped run drills, ran scrimmages and helped try to give kids an equal amount of playing time," he said, working with coaches like Florida's Billy Donovan, Washington's Lorenzo Romar and North Carolina's Roy Williams.
"They were solid guys who knew their roots," Miles said. "After each scrimmage we would vote 1-to-12 (to rank the players). After the fifth scrimmage, we talked about what the team's needs were. The last scrimmage came down to about four players. "It was pretty much 24-hour basketball."
Miles had time to spend with many of the coaches, including Illinois' Bruce Weber.
"They were good guys and I learned some interesting stories," Miles said. "They wanted to know about our philosophies, and how we run our program. It doesn't matter what level you're at, coaches want to know why some guys win and are successful."
Two of the players Miles especially liked who made the USA team were Doug McDermott of Creighton University and Kyhle Marshall of Butler.
"Jeremy Lamb from Connecticut is really talented, too," Miles said. "They're some pretty good players," he said of the team that will compete in the world championships in Latvia." The main thing I got is that I feel really good about the kids we're coaching (at Oregon Tech), what we're doing with our program," Miles said. "And, there are three or four teams I will root for that I didn't before, their coaches because of the kind of people they are.”
"The biggest difference between our players and (the ones at the tryout camp) is that if you add three inches, some of my guys are there. Add three inches to these guys for the NBA," he said.
"If you take our top 10 and add three inches, they would be at the Division I level." NAIA teams have more three-point shooters, sometimes having up to four shooters on the floor at one time,” Miles said. “Major college teams have one or two.”
Team USA will take on Serbia on Friday and China on Saturday to round out group play. The top three finishing teams from each preliminary round pool will advance to the second round to form two groups of six teams.
By STEVE MATTHIES-H&N Sports Editor