A few weeks ago, Colorado sophomore Jabari Walker was invited to try out for the USA Basketball Men's U19 World Cup Team down on-campus at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas.
Walker was one of 26 players invited to try out for the squad, which competes in Latvia from July 3-11 against fellow U19 teams from 16 other nations.
As a true freshman last year, the 6-foot-8 forward averaged 7.6 points and 4.3 rebounds, coming off the bench in 26 games in which he only saw about 14 minutes per night.
When the Buffaloes matched up with Georgetown in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Walker earned himself significant national recognition, torching the Hoyas for a team-high 24 points on 9-of-10 shooting.
Walker was red hot from long range, drilling 5-of-5 three-point attempts in CU's 96-73 victory.
Texas Christian's Jamie Dixon is serving as the U19 head coach this year, with Stanford head coach Jerod Haase and Yale's James Jones as his assistants.
The list of World Cup hopefuls was first trimmed from 26 to 17, an initial cut which Walker survived, however, he did not make the final 12-man roster that prepares to begin competition in Latvia.
Either way, to be included among the nation's elite players under 19 years of age was an honor Walker did not take lightly and furthermore, looked at it as a chance to evaluate himself against creme of the crop talent.
“It was a great experience," he said. "It’s always great to see how you match up against some of the best players in your class, to see where I’m at. I want to get better but it’s good to see that I’m not too far off and I can compete with those guys.”
For Tad Boyle, who had a chance to speak with Walker following his cut from the World Cup team, it was important to stress to him not to get discouraged.
“The biggest thing I told Jabari is that those decisions that are made are not always the right ones," Boyle said. "He has to use that to his advantage, which is ‘Hey, why didn’t I make the team? What are the things I came up short in the trial process and what can I do to use that as fuel for my fire to prove people wrong down the road?’"
To drive his point home, Boyle offered an anecdotal story from his own experience.
For starters, Boyle had been part of the selection process for the U19 World Cup Team in 2017, earning a bronze medal that year as an assistant coach.
More importantly, Boyle was an assistant coach for the US squad that competed at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto.
That year, a promising junior from Wichita State tried out, and was cut from the eventual team which went on to win a bronze medal.
That junior went on to average 12.2 points and 5.5 boards for the Shockers the next season as a senior.
He went undrafted in 2016 but landed with the Toronto Raptors, with whom he averaged 11 points per game in their eventual 2018-2019 NBA Championship season.
That player, deprived of a chance to compete in the Pan Am Games, was Fred VanVleet, who this past season posted career-highs for Toronto in points (19.6), rebounds (4.2) and minutes per game (36.5).
"I’ve been a part of that USA Basketball selection for the 19-and-under team and for the Pan-Am team and I remember one of the teams, it was the Pan Am team, we cut Fred Van Vleet," Boyle recalled. "(It) wasn’t a good decision to cut Fred Van Vleet, but we made that decision and we had to live with it."
"Fred Van Vleet used that experience to really fuel his fire, had a great senior year that year and obviously he’s turned into a heck of an NBA player. That’s what I told Jabari — it’s not a final thing, it’s a great experience and it’s a great honor to made the first cut down to 17 (players). Let’s turn a negative into a positive, and if Jabari does that, it’ll be a great story down the road.”
When Boyle mentioned that to Walker, the point was well-taken.
“He told me about that," Walker said. "(Boyle) said he still regrets it to this day when they cut (Van Vleet) so that’s what I’m hoping (to do), make them regret it later on.”
