Brad Beal, Andre Drummond and Adonis Thomas sparked a 110-82 blowout victory for the USA Men’s U16 National Team against Brazil to open FIBA Americas U16 Championship play Wednesday night in Mendoza, Argentina.
"Anytime you win at this level of competition, you're satisfied with the win," said USA head coach Don Showalter, head coach of Mid-Prairie High School in Iowa. "We have some things that Brazil threw at us that I thought we were prepared for like half-court traps. They never played us man-to-man so we had to adjust on the fly. We were prepared for it, we got kids in the right spots. Our rebounding was fantastic. We outrebounded them 51 to 25, that was a huge factor for us.”
Adonis Thomas
Photo courtesy of Steven Maikoski/USA Basketball
Thomas, a 6-7 wing forward from Melrose High School in Memphis, Tenn., led all scorers with 21 points, connecting on 4-of-5 3-point attempts.
Beal (Chaminade / St. Louis, Mo.) added 19 points and Drummond (Capital Prep / Hartford, Conn.) posted a 16-point, 11-rebound double-double.
James McAdoo (Norfolk Christian / Norfolk, Va.) and Quinn Cook (DeMatha / Hyattsville, Md.) also scored in double figures with 15 and 10 points, respectively.
"Andre (Drummond) came in real strong off the bench," McAdoo said. "We definitely look to him to be an inside presence immediately, right when he comes off the bench. He really gave us that today.”
In Wednesday’s earlier games, Venezuela defeated Puerto Rico 87-81, Canada blasted Mexico 90-44 and Argentina dominated Bahamas 106-72.
The USA continues preliminary play against Venezuela Thursday and Puerto Rico Friday, June 19.
