USA BASKETBALL TRAINING CAMP

Team USA gears up for the FIBA World basketballchampionships in Turkey on August with the opening of its training camp set on July 19-24 in Las Vegas. USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo and USA Basketball head coach  Mike Krzyzewski wants assurance that the Nationals are well prepared as they gun for a follow-up of their Olympic gold medal finish in Beijing in 2008.

Colangelo:

"We set out to establish a very challenging lineup of exhibition opponents for our 2010 USA National Team Tour and we have accomplished that.  In order to get our team as best prepared as possible for the 2010 World Championship we believe it is important to face top competition in challenging settings. In facing France in New York, Spain in Madrid, Greece in Athens and Lithuania in Spain, not only will we be facing formable teams that rank #3 (Spain), #4 (Greece), #6 (Lithuania) and #15 (France) in the FIBA world rankings , but we'll also be playing two of those teams in their home country."

Krzyzewski:

"I'm sure these four exhibition games will be exciting and memorable events for all basketball fans.  As we begin the building of our National Team for 2010-12, the first year is critical and in looking at our training and exhibition schedule this summer, we will face some very talented teams. France, Lithuania, Spain and Greece are all World Championship medal contenders and the training and the exhibition games that are ahead for the USA team will be critical to our preparations for the World Championship."