Pebblebrook High’s Collin Sexton and Pace Academy’s Wendell Carter took lead roles in leading the U.S. under-17 national team to a world championship Sunday. Sexton and Carter contributed significantly in the U.S. team’s 96-56 win over Turkey in the title game of the FIBA under-17 world championship in Zaragoza, Spain.
Sexton was named the tournament MVP while Carter was named to the all-tournament team. Georgia Tech is heavily recruiting both players.
Sexton came off the bench in the final – as he has done throughout the tournament – to score 16 points and also dole out eight assists. Carter had 11 points and eight assists.
“This is a great honor,” Sexton said. “We’ve been working hard since June 10 being able to make the team and then to win the gold medal is a big thing in itself.”
The U.S. has now won all four U-17 world championship. Sexton joins a rather impressive list of tournament MVP’s – Bradley Beal in 2010 (No. 3 pick of 2012 NBA draft), Justise Winslow in 2012 (10th overall pick of 2015 draft) and Malik Newman (10th rated player in 2015 class by ESPN).
“It feels great,” he said. “It showed my hard work paid off and now I’m going to keep working to get better.”
U.S. coach Don Showalter said that Sexton was a “late addition” to the team, having made it through a tryout in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“He had such a good spring and high school year and we said that we at least got to get him to come to training camp and the rest is history, as they say,” Showalter said. “He did not only a solid job, but he did a great job offensively and defensively getting everyone involved. He scored the ball when he had to score and really caused a lot of problems for the other teams defensively.”
The 40-point differential was the largest in a world under-17 title game. Sexton scored eight points in the first quarter to help the U.S. team end the period up 25-10. The lead was 50-20 by halftime.
Carter was the only other U.S. player on the all-tournament team.
“Wendell is such a dominant force inside and the nice thing about Wendell is he can really be a dominant force without scoring points,” Showalter said. “Defensively and rebounding, we saw it throughout the whole tournament.”
