University of Tennessee Athletics
Cooper Headed to U19 Trials
May 06, 2015 | Women's Basketball
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee rising freshman Te'a Cooper has been invited to participate in the 2015 USA Basketball Women's U19 World Championship Team Trials, which will take place May 14-17 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Cooper, a 5-foot-8 point guard from Powder Springs, Ga. (McEachern H.S.), will try to make the USA squad that will travel to Chekhov, Russia, to compete July 18-26 in the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship for Women. The event will be held at the Olimpiyskiy Sports Center.
"Looking at the list of invited players, I believe the committee members are going to have their hands full because it's filled with so much talent," said USA U19 head coach Dawn Staley (South Carolina). "I look forward to repeating the trials that we had last year, because it was competitive. It was respectful. All the players really bought into our coaching staff and the things that we had put in. Hopefully we'll have a repeat trials and come up with a team that will compete and win the (FIBA) U19 World Championship."
The American squad won its fifth-consecutive gold medal in U19/Junior World Championship play in 2013 and is 66-12 all-time at that event. Lady Vol rising senior Bashaara Graves was part of that victorious 2013 USA unit, averaging 8.4 points and 6.2 rebounds while starting all nine games of the tournament in Panevezys and Klaipeda, Lithuania.
Those selected for the USA team will regroup for training July 1-7 at the USOTC prior to traveling to Alicante, Spain, to compete in a round-robin tournament July 11-13 against U19 national teams from Australia, Canada and Spain prior to arriving in Russia for the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship.
