The World University Games are going down right now in South Korea, and USA Basketball sent a team to compete in the men’s basketball tournament. Not just any basketball team, though. Thanks to a busy summer of international basketball — the U19 World Championship just wrapped up, and the Pan-Am Games are about to begin — USA Basketball decided not to cobble together yet another all-star team, opting to send the Kansas Jayhawks instead. As in, the entire Jayhawks team, coached by Bill Self.
Not only are the Jayhawks playing, they decided to save USA Basketball a buck or two and rock their school uniforms (albeit, special ones — featuring a small Team USA patch — made specifically for the World Games). There are two things wrong with this:
1. Two of the players on Team USA don’t even play for Kansas. SMU’s Nic Moore and Florida Gulf Coast’s Julian DeBose are on the team, filling in for two Jayhawks players who are unable to participate. So, that’s a bit awkward.
2. More importantly, World Games officials demanded the Team USA jerseys feature “Team USA” more prominently.
That forced the team to find a local seamstress who could turn the Kansas jerseys into Team USA jerseys. Not make brand new ones, mind you, but just make them look as Team USA-ish as possible. Here’s the result:
Yep, there’s “USA” on the front, but the shorts still have a KU patch on them (see above). There’s also a KU patch on the back of the jerseys. Clearly, the Junior Goodwill Games have a much more relaxed policy on such things.
[SBNation]
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