Vonleh & Joseph Win Chip at Adidas Nations

by A.J. Stokes | Monday, August 6th, 2012

After a dominating performance last week in Las Vegas at the Adidas Super 64, Noah Vonleh upped the stakes and had another monster performance over the past four days at Adidas Nations in Long Beach, California.  

Playing on the same squad as fellow-Mass Rival Kaleb Joseph, an energized Vonleh led his USA Red 2013 Team to a 3-1 record in Pool Play and a berth in the Final Four of the Medal Round by averaging an event-leading 20 points/per game while finishing as the #2 rebounder with a dozen boards a clip, (behind Clint Capele of Team Africa).  

On Sunday Night in the Final Four, USA Red 2014 went up against an Australia squad which swept through Pool Play at 4-0, and after trailing 37-35 at the half, Red put together a a big second half to pull out a tough 67-62 victory to advance to the Gold Medal Game.  Five-Star point guard Emmanuel Mudiay of Dallas led the way for Red in this one with 18 points while Vonleh came through with 14 point and 13 rebounds.  

In the Gold Medal Game, Red took a 47-33 lead into the break after a half in which Joseph performed well in the back-court, but Red saw USA Blue 2013 go on a 3rd quarter tear to tie the game at 59 heading into the 4th period of play.  In the final frame, Blue 2013 pulled ahead to take a 4-point lead into the final four minutes, but Red battled back, and trailing by 2 with under 10 seconds to play, Vonleh came up with huge tip-in to tie the game at 77 with six seconds remaining.  There was no scoring in the final ticks and the game went to OT, where after a neck and neck stretch, with Blue up by 1 over Red, Vonleh knocked down a 3-pointer in the final seconds to give his team an 86-84 win and the Adidas Nations 2012 Gold Medal.  

Although he had a very quiet first-half, Vonleh exploded in the second half, making a mess of the scorebook to finish with a dogmatic stat-line of 26 points and 16 rebounds, earning MVP honors without debate.  After his phenomenal play during the second half of July in which he has flat-out been the best player at both the Super 64 and Nations, Vonleh (3 weeks shy of turning 17th) has himself in cement as one of the top few basketball prospects in the world.

Notes: With Head Coach Don McLean imploring his perimeter players to get the ball inside, Vonleh went to work from the extended-post throughout the event using a variety of moves and shear force to get to the basket at-will and go up towards the top of the square to attack the rim frequently and in-traffic, while also mixing in soft-touch buckets with either hand.  Vonleh also got buckets by slashing from the wing both in the half-court and transition and also by trailing the break hard for easy put-backs.  In addition to emphatically scoring and rebounding the ball, Vonleh also was a frequent leader of the fast-break and drew frequent praise from McLean for making the correct pass out of the double-team to set his team up for high-percentage scoring opportunities.

Throughout the Event, Kaleb Joseph was impressive in showing his ever-expounding ability to play a complimentary back-court role at the highest grassroots level.  Playing with like guys like Vonleh, Mudiay, Shaquan Aaron, Stanley Johnson, Cliff Alexander, and Rashad Vaughn, Joseph was consistently effective in raising the level of his team's play by guarding the ball and cutting into the defense with the dribble to create passing lanes to get the ball to cutting and relocating teammates.  Joseph also took good care of the basketball and dropped his share of dimes on the weekend.