Rising-sophomores guard Meechie Johnson Jr. and forward Zed Key will attend the 2021 USA Basketball Men’s FIBA U19 World Cup Team training camp in Fort Worth, Texas. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Two Buckeyes will attend the 2021 USA Basketball Men’s FIBA U19 World Cup Team training camp set to take place next week.
Rising-sophomores guard Meechie Johnson Jr. and forward Zed Key accepted invitations to join 25 other players on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, from June 20-22. The pool of players will then become a 12-member team set to compete July 3-11 in Riga and Daugavpils, Latvia.
“Great honor for those guys,” head coach Chris Holtmann said. “It’s a pretty grueling few days, but super excited for those guys.”
Holtmann said he was contacted “pretty early” about Johnson and Key’s invitations to the camp, and even was asked to be an assistant coach on the team after serving as a court coach in 2019. However, Holtmann said schedule conflicts didn’t allow him to join as an assistant this year.
Johnson and Key’s invitations come on the heels of their first seasons as Buckeyes on the hardwood, as the former joined Ohio State as a mid-year enrollee in December and the latter is a native of Bay Shore, New York, from the high school class of 2020. Holtmann spoke highly of their invitations.
“We really don’t have any role in that, we don’t nominate guys — that comes directly from USA Basketball and from some of their kind of grassroots organizations where they view guys,” Holtmann said.
Johnson saw time in 17 games during the 2020-21 season, and flashed in limited action through 14 conference contests. The 6-foot-2 guard shot 7-of-18 from the floor and scored a career-high six points Jan. 13 against Northwestern and Feb. 4 at Iowa, making a pair of 3-pointers in both games.
Key was a critical contributor in Ohio State’s frontcourt, playing in all 31 games and averaging 11.7 minutes off the bench. Standing 6-foot-8, Key led the Buckeyes with a 61.6 field goal percentage, was second with 22 blocks and tied for fourth with 105 rebounds.
Current TCU head coach Jamie Dixon will serve as the U19 team’s head coach, and Stanford head coach Jerod Haase and Yale skipper James Jones will comprise the assistant coaching roles. The USA Men’s teams have won seven gold medals, three silver medals and one bronze medal in the 14 competitions since its inception in 1979. They hold a 98-4 overall record.
Johnson and Key will have the opportunity to join former guard David Lighty — who captained the silver medal-winning team in 2007 — as Buckeyes to participate in the FIBA U19 World Cup.
“It’s an incredible organization,” Holtmann said. “They jumped at it, they were like all-in, like, ‘Coach, we’re going to it. Can we room together?’ And I was like, ‘You guys room together here, you sure?’ First thing Meechie asked me. So, they’re really excited about it and I’m excited about going out there and taking a couple days to watch them during their tryouts.”
