Men’s Basketball: Freshman point guard Robinson wins gold medal with Team USA in Brazil

A few weeks ago, Pitt fans expecting to see James Robinson play on the opening night of the… A few weeks ago, Pitt fans expecting to see James Robinson play on the opening night of the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Pro-Am summer league at Greentree were disappointed that he didn’t show up. But that disappointment quickly faded when they found out that the incoming Panthers freshman point guard was absent because he was busy playing on another continent in a much more important game.

Robinson was with Team USA at the 2012 FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil, in late June, where he averaged 4.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game as the American squad cruised to the gold medal with dominating wins in all five of its contests.

But more important than the numbers for Robinson, who hopes he can follow in the steps of Brandin Knight, Carl Krauser, Levance Fields and current Pitt senior Tray Woodall to become the next great Pitt point guard, is the experience he gained playing alongside some of the nation’s best young players, as well as playing for some of college basketball’s best coaches in Team USA’s head coach Billy Donovan from Florida and assistants Mark Few of Gonzaga and Shaka Smart from Virginia Commonwealth.

“I think [playing for the U-18 team] was a good head start for me, playing under Coach Donovan, Coach Smart and Coach Few,” Robinson said of the experience. “They ran their practices and their workouts how [Pitt] would run [its] practices and workouts, so I think that gave me a little preview of how [Pitt] coach [Jamie] Dixon runs things here in Pittsburgh.”

Robinson, who was ranked as the fourth-best player at his position in the most recent recruiting class by ESPN, also added that the most important thing he took away from the experience of playing under the three coaches was “consistency, and just pushing through because everyone’s going to be tired and sore, but just having the mindset to push through and persevere.”

Donovan, a winner of back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007 as head coach of Florida, chose Robinson to be on Team USA after holding tryouts in Colorado Springs, Colo., in early June. He believes the young point guard will fit in perfectly at Pitt with Dixon’s team.

“Once we started practicing, we saw that he’s a winner and a great role guy. He’s a typical Pitt player. Jamie [Dixon] will love coaching him,” Donovan said in an interview with ESPN’s Andy Katz. “People will say, ‘Where did this guy come from?’ The kid is a winner. I liked coaching him. He was the same guy every day.”

Since winning the gold medal, Robinson has returned to Pittsburgh to compete at Greentree on the PGT Trucking team alongside future Pitt teammates Lamar Patterson, Steven Adams and Trey Zeigler.

In four games played, Robinson averaged seven points, four rebounds and three assists per game while running the point and guiding PGT to a 4-1 record.

Robinson believes that even though the summer league games don’t count, they have helped him begin to establish rapport with his teammates and smooth his transition into the Pitt basketball program.

“It’s good for us to build chemistry,” Robinson said of playing with Patterson, Adams and Zeigler at Greentree. “We’re having fun, but at the same time, we are building chemistry together and just competing against some of the best players around this area.”

From Brazil to Greentree, Robinson has already exhibited a number of qualities and capabilities that will make him a valuable player in Dixon’s rotation this season.

As a true point guard, Robinson, who averaged 11.2 points and 6.4 assists during his senior season at DeMatha, not only keeps the team in the flow of its offense, but also initiates that flow by making good passes and rarely turning the ball over.

And defensively, he can keep up in man-to-man situations and knows how to play off the ball, as his eight rebounds per game in high school proves.

Along with numerous Pitt fans, Robinson is also receiving attention from past Pitt greats, namely Fields (2005-2008), one of the best point guards in school history.

“James [Robinson] is going to be a bright spot for [Pitt] moving forward,” Fields said after watching him play at Greentree. “He learns quick — he soaks everything up like a sponge. He’s really elite. He makes the right plays.”

Fields’ endorsement is all Pitt fans should need to know that Robinson has the potential to maintain Pitt’s strong recent history of producing tremendous talent at the point guard position.