UNDER-20 AND IVOR BURGE CHAMPIONSHIPS TEAMS ANNOUNCED

Held at Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Canberra from February 12-17, the tournament will see 30 teams compete in 99 games across six days with the draw available here.

After Victoria completed a gold-medal sweep of all four competitions last year, their Under-20 Men will be aiming to win their ninth Jack Terrill Trophy from the past ten years.

They have sent two teams to Canberra this year and Victoria feature Mason Gaze, son of Andrew as well as Zac Triplett who impressed at last year’s Under-18 Championships with a double-digit scoring average for Vic Metro.

Victoria A, coached by Boomers legend Chris Anstey, includes six players from the 2018 gold-medal winning team such as Keli Leaupepe, Sean MacDonald and Josh Kunen.

They will have stiff competition in Western Australia, who have four players from the victorious 2018 Under-18 men’s team including Luke Travers and Wani Swaka Lo Buluk while they, alongside Kyle Bowen and Alex Ducas, have all represented Australia on the international stage.

The NBA Global Academy will compete in the men’s tournament for a second straight year featuring Aussies Blake Jones, Mojave King and Kane Waters as well as Francisco Farabello who recently committed to Texas Christian University.

Several past and present WNBL players will be involved in the Under-20 Women’s competition including Alex Fowler (Queensland), Ruby Porter (South Australia) as well as Isabelle Bourne and Caitlin Rowe (ACT) with Rowe having led the Under-20’s for assists last year.

Victoria have their fair share of WNBL stars as well in Chelsea D’Angelo and Jazmin Shelley who are aiming to go back-to-back at their final Junior Championships as well as Isobel Anstey.

In addition, all four members of the bronze-medal winning side from the 2018 Youth Olympics 3×3 competition (Fowler, Porter, Sara-Rose Smith of Victoria and Western Australia’s Suzi-Rose Deegan) will take part in the Under-20 Championships.

With the 2019 INAS Global Games being held in Brisbane this October, the Ivor Burge Men and Ivor Burge Women will have a lot to prove at this year’s tournament as they aim to make the Australian Boomerangs and Pearls teams.

Scoring ten more points per game than any other player at the Ivor Burge Championships last year, Jake De La Motte will again lead Victoria in their quest for a 15th consecutive gold medal.

Fellow national players stand in his way though including Joshua Cleary (Tasmania), Harrison Mallard (South Australia) and Justin Koenig (ACT) while a Japanese men’s team will also compete for the second time in three years.

The Ivor Burge Women welcome the return of NSW Metro this year as they aim to dethrone Victoria who still look very strong behind the play of Kate Leckenby and Kate Zonneveld.

NSW Country will take confidence from their bronze medal last year though with six players returning from that team while ACT, who just missed out in 2018 by finishing fourth, will aim to reach the podium in front of a home crowd.

To avoid queues, pre-purchase your tickets online for the tournament here.

The post UNDER-20 AND IVOR BURGE CHAMPIONSHIPS TEAMS ANNOUNCED appeared first on Basketball Australia.

The build-up to the 2019 Australian Under-20 and Ivor Burge Championships continues with the release of the team lists for every competition.

The post UNDER-20 AND IVOR BURGE CHAMPIONSHIPS TEAMS ANNOUNCED appeared first on Basketball Australia.

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