Wrentham's Layman, USA U18 Basketball Overpowers Host Brazil

Getting points from every member of the USA U18 Team, including three from Wrentham's Jake Layman and a game high 22 points from Jarnell Stokes (University of Tennessee/Memphis, Tenn.) and 15 more from Julius Randle (Prestonwood Christian Academy/ McKinney, Texas), the USA U18 men's basketball team downed host Brazil (2-1) 83-64 Monday night at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship for Men in Sao Sebastiáo do Paraiso, Brazil.

USA will now play Argentina, who is 2-1 in the tournament, tonight at 5 p.m. Live game stats are available at www.usabasketball.com. 

The win earned the U.S. a qualifying spot in the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship, improved the Americans record to 3-0, and earned them the Group A No. 1 seed for Tuesday’s medal round semifinals.

“Argentina is a really, really physical team. They really execute very well; they’re tough; they run a lot of different actions and that’s so hard,” said USA and University of Florida head coach Billy Donovan. “We’ll have a little bit of time in the morning to talk about them and get our guys familiar with Argentina, but I think right now the four teams left that are going to be playing for a medal – Brazil, USA, Argentina and Canada – all four of those teams have a unique style and some things they can hang their hat on and I think Argentina hangs their hat on their execution and being a physical, tough team.”

Layman, the former King Philip standout, who is headed to the University of Maryland, has scored  28 points in three games for a 9.3 per game average. He also has 16 rebounds.