Less than a year after Bill Self’s Kansas program represented the United States at the World University Games and won the country’s first men’s basketball gold medal at the event since 2005, another Division I program announced that it will represent the nation at next year’s World University games.
Tuesday morning it was announced that next summer it will be Purdue that represents the country at the World University Games in Taipei, Taiwan. Matt Painter’s program joins Kansas and Northern Iowa (2007) as programs that have been selected to represent the United States at the World University Games.
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#Purdue will represent Team USA in the 2017 World University Games in Chinese Taipei. #BoilerUp https://t.co/PRAMMtO1KV
— Purdue Men's Basketball 🚂🏀 (@BoilerBall) May 31, 2016
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This won’t be Painter’s first experience with USA Basketball, as he was an assistant on Jamie Dixon’s staff that led the U19 team to gold at the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championships in New Zealand. He was also head coach of the 2011 World University Games team, leading the United States to a fifth-place finish in Shenzhen, China.
Amongst the players on the current roster, rising sophomore forward Caleb Swanigan was a member of the United States U17 and U19 teams, winning gold at the 2014 FIBA U17 World Championships and the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championships.
Leading up to next year’s event it will also be interesting to see if Painter fills out his roster with a couple players from other programs. Last year’s World University Games roster had two non-Jayhawks, SMU point guard Nic Moore and FGCU shooting guard Julian DeBose.