Basketball: Dixon, Gibbs lead USA to gold medal

Pitt basketball coach Jamie Dixon sure had a golden touch with the USA Men’s U-19 Basketball… Pitt basketball coach Jamie Dixon sure had a golden touch with the USA Men’s U-19 Basketball team this year.

For the first time in 18 years, the U-19, led by Dixon, took home the FIBA U-19 World Championship.

The USA fended off a strong Greek team to notch an 88-80 victory Sunday night in the gold-medal game in Auckland, New Zealand.

It was a unique and special feeling for the first-time head coach.

“It really feels good,” Dixon said. “You know this is so unique for us, doing it in the off-season, really our summer, and then getting together with a group it’s something that you don’t normally do.”

Dixon put together the U-19 roster he could in June when trials for the national team took place. And less than a month later, he was sporting a gold medal with his team.

“It really is rewarding, especially now, the whole thing has been a great experience,” Dixon said. “We really set as a goal to win the gold medal. We also made it very clear that we hadn’t won this since 1991. We talked about that and we used that as motivation throughout the month we’ve been together, and I think it was really an important part of our work ethic and what we did.”

The team finished the tournament with an undefeated, 9-0 record and averaged a 22.2 margin of victory during the run.

The United States has now been a medal winner in seven of the nine FIBA U-19 World Championships. It last won the tournament in 1991, after finishing 8-0 in the tournament.

The players knew this, of course, as Dixon wouldn’t let them forget it.

“Coach Dixon kept letting us know that we hadn’t won this tournament for a while,” Kansas guard, and tournament MVP, Tyshawn Taylor said. “This was our time, we knew with the guys that we brought on this team that we didn’t have any superstars on the team. We just had really good players who liked being around each other and liked playing with each other.”

Taylor led all U.S. scorers with 18 points in the game. He also added six assists and five steals.

But there was another Pitt basketball representative on the team. Sophomore guard Ashton Gibbs started and scored 13 points in the championship game to lead an onslaught of scorers from the United States. In total, seven players scored seven or more points for the United States.

In the championship game, USA looked to be cruising to an easy win after a 16-1 run in the second quarter put the team ahead 35-20. Gibbs started the run and scored six points during the spurt. USA took a 46-30 lead into the half.

But after an 8-0 run in the third quarter, the United States’ once comfortable lead was down to eight points, 50-42, with 5:38 left in the third.

“It was a physical, grind out game,” Gibbs said. “We knew they were a physical team. We played them once before and they played us tough and they played us tough once again. But we withstood the run they had in the second half and we got the win.”

USA put away Greece with strong 3-point and free-throw shooting down the stretch.

To get to the championship game, USA rallied to beat Croatia 81-77 last Saturday.

In the semifinal game, the United States blew a 16-point lead in the first half and found themselves trailing 59-57 heading in to the fourth quarter. Then at the 3:14 mark, the score was tied 70.

But USA made key plays down the stretch to secure the victory and withstand Croatia’s pressure.

“It was good to be in a game like that,” Dixon said after beating Croatia. “We really haven’t had to do that — make some plays, make some free throws down the stretch, play smart. I thought we did a pretty good job of doing what we wanted to do out of the timeouts. I thought we made the plays.”

Dixon was assisted on the USA sidelines by collegiate head coaches Chris Lowery of Southern Illinois University and Matt Painter of Purdue University.