Recent Regis Jesuit grad Fran Belibi is headed to Bangkok, Thailand, with the USA U19 World Cup women’s basketball team as it goes for a gold medal in the 13th FIBA World Cup tournament.
The Stanford signee — no stranger to international play — and her teammates first stopped in Tokyo to scrimmage against the Japan U19 National Team before heading to Thailand. The Americans have three days of training and two scrimmages against Argentina and Germany ahead of the biannual World Cup, which runs July 20-28.
The USA team is part of Group C in the tournament and will face Australia, South Korea and Hungary, while all 16 teams in the tournament advance to the medal round, which begins July 24. Gold and bronze medal games are scheduled for July 28.
The USA has won six gold medals in the tournament that began in 1985, but lost to Russia in the gold medal game in 2017.
Grandview sophomore-to-be Lauren Betts already helped the USA to a gold medal this summer at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship tournament in Chile, while former Grandview star Michaela Onyenwere will try to do the same at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, in August.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports