Young Jayson Tatum has already accomplished a great deal in his short, yet burgeoning high school basketball career.
On Monday night, Tatum reached another major goal when he was selected to the USA Basketball 16U team that will represent the country in the FIBA Americas Tournament in Maldonado, Uruguay. The USA will begin play on June 11 when they face Mexico in pool play.
The 6’7” sophomore was one of 12 players selected to the team, which just concluded his tryout camp in Colorado Springs. More than 30 of the nation’s top players from the 2015 and 2016 classes were selected to participate in the tryouts. The list was trimmed down to 16 over the weekend with the final cut down to 12 made on Monday night.
As a freshman at Chaminade College Prep, Tatum led his team to the Metro Catholic Conference title and a Class 5 district championship. He became the first freshman in the history of the MCC to be selected as the Player of the Year in the league.
Tatum has been playing this summer with the St. Louis Eagles 16U team. He led the Eagles to the championship of the NY2LA Swish-n-Dish Tournament in April. He has already received offers from schools such as Kentucky, Florida, Kansas, Marquette, Illinois, SLU, Mizzou, Memphis with many more to come.
The last player from St. Louis to play for USA Basketball was former Chaminade All-American Bradley Beal, who led the USA to gold medals at the FIBA 16U Americas Tournament and the 17U World Championships.
