(WISH) — Just over a year ago, they faced off as rivals. Now, they put the past aside to represent their country.
Former Indiana basketball star Trayce Jackson-Davis and Purdue men’s basketball head coach Matt Painter will travel to Las Vegas with the USA Basketball Select Team.
The USA Basketball men’s national team will train with the USA Basketball men’s national team this coming weekend, July 6-8. They will play against the team head-to-head for the first three days of practice. Then, a select group of players from the USA Basketball men’s national team are typically chosen to stay with the Olympic team and continue training with them in Abu Dhabi, where the Olympic team will have more practices and exhibitions before the start of the Olympic Games.
This is the second consecutive year that Matt Painter has been named to the USA Basketball Select Team. He was an assistant coach for last year’s group and will serve in the same role this year. Painter also served as the court coach for the USA Basketball U-18 Men’s National Team at their training camp in Colorado Springs.
Jackson-Davis also has previous experience with USA Basketball. He played with Team USA at the 2018 FIBA Americas Championship in Canada, where he won a gold medal.
Jackson-Davis was victorious in the last two times he and Painter met, but Painter was more successful in each of them, beating IU and Jackson-Davis in five of the eight games they played against each other while Jackson-Davis was in Bloomington.
Jackson-Davis was impressive in his rookie year in the NBA, punctuation He averaged 7.9 points per game and grabbed 5.0 rebounds per game, and started 16 of the 68 games he played.
He was just one vote away from making the NBA All-Rookie Second Team.
Painter will be joined by Pacers assistant coach Jim Boylen as the team’s two assistants selected. The head coach is Jamahi Mosley, the head coach of the Orlando Magic.
The full roster of the USA Basketball All-Star Team can be viewed here here.