COLORADO SPRINGS | Fran Belibi’s ceiling in the game of basketball seems to go higher with every day she plays the game.
The Regis Jesuit junior-to-be with just two years of basketball experience made waves this past season when she became the first Colorado girls player to dunk in a game has taken her game to the next level.
On Monday, Belibi was among the final pool of 18 players selected to the USA Basketball’s U16 team that will try to win a gold medal for the country at the 2017 FIBA America’s U16 Championships June 7-11 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A short training camp that began Monday in Colorado Springs will help coach Carla Barube (Tufts University) and her staff pick the final 12 players for the U16 team. The group has been cut down from 133 players over four days of tryouts.
“The entire weekend was an amazing experience for myself, my staff, the court coaches,” Barube said in a statement from USA Basketball. “We thought that having 133 talented athletes in this gym made it very hard for the committee. The athletes worked very hard every single session, every single scrimmage and gave it everything they had. To now be down to 18, I’m really, really looking forward to the next few days of practice.”
Regis Jesuit coach Carl Mattei has been watching Belibi over the full course of the tryouts and said she is the only player he’s had in his coaching tenure to make it this far in the quest to make a national team.
Belibi, 15, had already been on the USA Basketball radar with her play at the organization’s 3-on-3 national tournament in April. The versatile 6-foot-1 forward has been adding more and more facets to her game since she began to play basketball just two years ago and now has hundreds of standing college scholarship offers after her dunks went viral.
Belibi helped her Regis Jesuit team make it to the Class 5A state semifinals in the winter season as she averaged 15.7 points, 11.6 rebounds, 3.2 blocks and 2.6 steals per game. She also played in the inaugural A-Town All-Stars girls game in March.
Athletes from Aurora schools have made similar USA teams in the past, including former Eaglecrest volleyball star Jordyn Poulter, who played abroad four years in a row with USA Volleyball.
Former Regis Jesuit volleyball star Janae Hall also traveled with a USA age group team that played in Ankara, Turkey, in 2011.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
FINAL 18 PLAYERS FOR U-16 USA GIRLS BASKETBALL NATIONAL TEAM
River Baldwin (Pleasant Home School/Andalusia, Ala.); Francesca Belibi (Regis Jesuit H.S.); Aliyah Boston (Worcester Academy/Worcester, Mass.); Cameron Brink (Southridge H.S./Beaverton, Ore.); Samantha Brunelle (William Monroe H.S./Ruckersville, Va.); Paige Bueckers (Hopkins H.S./Eden Prairie, Minn.); Maddie Burke (Central Bucks H.S. West/ Doylestown, Pa.); Caitlin Clark (Dowling Catholic H.S./West Des Moines, Iowa); Zia Cooke (Rogers H.S./Toledo, Ohio); Azzi Fudd (Potomac School/Falls Church, Va.); Jordan Horston (Columbus Africentric Early College/Columbus, Ohio); Haley Jones (Archbishop Mitty H.S./Santa Cruz, Calif.); Diamond Miller (Franklin H.S./Somerset, N.J.); Jordyn Oliver (Prosper H.S./Prosper, Texas); Ashley Owusu (Paul VI Catholic H.S./Woodbridge, Va.); Ramani Parker (Central H.S./Fresno, Calif.); Celeste Taylor (Long Island Lutheran H.S./Valley Stream, N.Y.); and Kylee Watson (Mainland Regional H.S./Linwood, N.J.).
