USA Select Basketball completes 2008 European Exhibition Tour

Charlotte based USA Select Basketball (www.USAselectbasketball.com) just completed it’s 8th European Exhibition Tour the week. The organization, headed by Charlottean Sean Kilmartin, is a professional basketball marketing group designed to help American players find contracts on European teams. USA Select has several “try out” camps around the country and then selects it’s travel team . The team plays a series of exhibition show case games against top teams in Europe in an effort to get the US players exposure leading to professional contracts.

Historically these players have come from large programs like Duke, NC State, U Conn, Wake Forest to mid majors like Appalachian Sate , Davidson,Xavier, Temple, St. Joe’s and Cleveland State. Smaller schools like Barton, Winston-Salem State and Limestone college. This year, Coach Kilmartin was accompanied by his oldest son (still a senior at Charlotte Catholic High School), Ryan Kilmartin for the first 5 days of the European Tour.

Training camp was held in Pineville at the Belle Johnston Center and local restaurants Showmars and City Tavern fed the team.

This year, the team played an incredible total of 17 matches in 20 days covering nearly 20,000 miles. Playing in a different city nearly every night, the group had the opportunity to play several televised games in front of packed gyms, playing in locations like London, Glasgow, Helsinki and more. One event lead them to play in Plymouth England and visited the famous Mayflower steps (where the ship of the same name set off for the New World.) In an unfortunate coincidence, the team played in Kauhajoki, Finland just a few days before the recent tragedy.

Although an exhaustive schedule, the tour allowed for great exposure for the players who hailed from schools as varied as Appalachian State University, Hawaii Pacific, St. Bonaventure , Flager College, University of New Orleans, St. Augustine’s, Limestone College, Barton College and Cleveland State University.

Coach Kilmartin has been doing this for over ten years and has helped placed players all over the world with professional contracts. Over the years, USA Select has played top teams in England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Hungry, Finland, Ireland and others.

This years group landed an abundance tryouts and offers for players.

Scotland U16 are crowned European champions in Division C
by Eurobasket News – Jul 2, 2008

Scotland U16 – Wales U16 102:39 Scottish U16 Team improved on the 2006 European championship result this year. They thumped Welsh U16 side to claim the Gold medals of the 2008 edition of the event. Wales could not put up a worthy fight in the Final yesterday. Scottish players were dominant right from the start and never loosened the grip throughout the action. Alasdair Fraser came up with yet another extra class performance leading Scotland to a stunning victory.

Scotland U16 – Wales U16 102:39

Scottish U16 Team improved on the 2006 European championship result this year. They thumped Welsh U16 side to claim the Gold medals of the 2008 edition of the event. Wales could not put up a worthy fight in the Final yesterday. Scottish players were dominant right from the start and never loosened the grip throughout the action. Alasdair Fraser came up with yet another extra class performance leading Scotland to a stunning victory. He tallied 38 points and 9 boards to almost outscore Wales singlehandedly. His four points early in the game put Scottish side 6:0 up. Alasdair Fraser dropped 16 points in the first frame and Scotland enjoyed a 33:9 lead. Scottish side opened the second period on a 12:0 run to pile up a 32-point cushion. Finally Wales managed to answer with some decent stuff as Daniel Pulman and Adams dropped back-to-back trebles. But it was just a brief display of skills from Wales as they trailed by 38 points at the interval. The teams traded baskets in the third period with Scotland still mounting their advantage. The scoreboard read 77:30 at the end of the third stanza and Wales were done for the day. Scottish team breezed to an overall victory at the end finalizing an overwhelming success for Scottish U16 side. Lee Reilly provided 17 points for Scotland. Jonathan Bunyan had 12 points and 8 assists for the winners. Daniel Pulman and Alex Kilmartin answered with 8 points apiece for Wales. Jared Adams secured 7 points in defeat.

Scotland U16: Alasdair Fraser 38, Lee Reilly 17, Jonathan Bunyan 12
Wales U16: Alex Kilmartin 8 ,Daniel Pulman 8