Team USA takes title over Turkey 105-72, Buddinger named MVP

From AZcat.com
Team USA won the title at the 2006 Douai Junior World Championship on Sunday, defeating Turkey 105-72. After 22 points and 12 rebounds, future Wildcat Chase Budinger took home tournament MVP honors.

Chase Budinger won tournament and slam dunk contest MVP awards.
After the game, Budinger participated in a slam dunk contest and defeated players from France, Lithuania and Sweden, winning the event championship. Nick Calathes won the three-point shootout after the game.

In the dunk contest, Budinger found himself in the finals against a player from France that got to the last round by dunking over three teammates. However, the French dunker missed both of his dunks to start off the final round.

Budinger had some experience in this situation, as the exact same thing happened to him at the McDonald's All-American dunk contest. In that competition, Budinger attempted some difficult dunks and missed them. This time, he was given some different advice.

"I told him," said trainer Trent Suzuki. "'Listen, make one this time.'"

For the tournament, Budinger averaged 23.8 points (1st overall), 6.8 rebounds (6th overall) and 2.2 assists (16th overall). Nic Wise had three points and three assists in the championship game and finished the tournament averaging 9.6 points (16th overall) and 5.8 assists (1st overall).

Budinger wasn't the only American with a big performance in the championship game. Stanford-bound Robin Lopez had 19 points and 20 rebounds while Thaddeus Young had 17 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and six steals and Jeff Allen scored 19 points with 11 rebounds.

The USA is the first team in tournament history to score over 100 points in every game. The closest that any team came to the Americans was 24. When you combine those statistics with the USA winning the championship and all the event's awards, it's safe to say that it was a successful tournament.

"We won every piece of hardware you could win," said Suzuki.

I will have more on the stats later. Getting stats in France apparently is pretty difficult.

Nike Junior World Championship website (France)

Final: Team USA 120 Lithuania 97 (Box) Semifinal Game Stats