COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — In less than a week, Arizona Wildcats commit T.J. Leaf will have stomached a trifecta of assaults on his system.
First, there was the physical beating the 18-year-old incoming high school senior took from European guys in their 20s during last weekend’s Adidas Eurocamp.
Then he had to throw off some jet lag and try to get some rest while returning home to the San Diego area for a mere two days.
Now, at USA Basketball’s U19 training camp, Leaf has to deal with the gut-sucking mile-high altitude of the U.S. Olympic Training center campus.
Fun? Well, yes, actually, it is. For a guy who’s as determined to improve as Leaf, that is.
Starting with last week while playing for a USA Select team at Eurocamp in Treviso, Italy.
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“It was a great experience,” Leaf said Saturday, after the U19 team’s first workout. “You’re playing against guys who are 23, 24 years old. We realized we have a long way to go. Skill-level wise, we were all there, but just some of their physical attributes were a little bit better.”
Actually, some of the same is true this week. While the camp invitees must have had their 19th birthday no earlier than last Jan. 1 to be eligible, some of them have already finished their freshman year of college — UCLA’s Thomas Welsh, Utah’s Brekkot Chapman and Gonzaga’s Silas Melson among them.
Even UA recruiting target Josh Jackson, a top-five player in the class of 2016, says that makes a difference.
“I think the college guys are definitely making an impact,” Jackson said. “They’re a lot bigger and stronger than the other guys, but we’re prepared for what they’re bringing.”
The young guys have only three days — four total workouts — to prove they belong.
USA Basketball will hold two workouts Sunday and one more on Monday morning before cutting the roster from 21 to 15 or 16 players, with the final 12-man team being chosen before the team leaves on June 21 for Greece, where the U19 World Championships will be held.
During Saturday’s first workout, the players jumped quickly into a fullcourt scrimmage, with U19 head coach Sean Miller of Arizona, his assistants and other USA Basketball committee members sitting by the court to evaluate while other “court coaches” directed their teams.
”The only thing that really matters now is finding the right team,” Miller said.
Jackson said the competition level was so high during that scrimmage that “they can almost pick this team blindfolded and have a pretty good team.”
The box score bore that out. Not only was the production balanced, but age really didn’t matter. Harry Giles, a 17-year-old forward from the class of 2016, opened eyes in the first scrimmage with 18 points on 8-for-12 shooting while Jackson, an 18-year-old, had 10 points, five rebounds and two assists.
While Leaf was the only scoreless player, he had eight rebounds while throwing off all that jet lag and facing a number of difficult matchups.
“Us 2016s, we’re just playing up, so it’s a little bit different,” Leaf said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
No matter what happens, Leaf knows there is plenty to gain from the experience.
He’s getting to play with guys such as Jackson and Giles, whom he will inevitably see on the high-school all-star circuit next season and in college in 2016-17.
He’s also getting to work for the first time under Miller, his future coach. And both the Eurocamp and USA Basketball experiences are reminders of his goal to leap from having about 219 pounds on his 6-foot-10 frame now to about 230 by the time he arrives at Arizona next summer.
“I want to work on everything,” Leaf said.
“I want to get a lot stronger, and I’ve been working on that a lot. Also on my consistency throughout my game, in every aspect.”
