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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2009
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Junior guard Danielle McCray lines up a shot past multiple Iowa State defenders during the Jayhawks' Feb. 22 victory in Allen Fieldhouse. McCray was one of 14 athletes chosen to play for Team USA this summer.
Senior guard chosen for Team USA
Danielle McCray will play in the World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia beginning July 1
BY JASON BAKER
jbaker@kansan.com
In her two years playing Kansas basketball, senior guard Danielle McCray has played against the top teams in the Big 12. Now she'll have the opportunity to play some of the top teams in the world.
McCray was one of 14 finalists vying for a spot on the 12-person roster for Team USA in the World
University Games. The final roster was announced Monday, McCray and the team will begin competing on July 1 in Belgrade, Serbia against France.
On Sunday before the announcement, McCray said, she thought her chances of making the team were pretty high.
After the announcement, she said, she was excited and looked
winning a gold medal.
Coach Bonnie Henrickson got McCray involved with the tryouts.
"I signed her up without her knowing it," Henrickson said.
Henrickson said she knew McCray wanted to try out and thought that with what she had produced for Kansas, along with her unselfishness as a player, she would be a good fit.
forward to traveling to Serbia and Henrickson was an assistant
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coach for Team USA during the World University Games in 1999, and also served as head coach for Team USA in 2000 when the team won the gold medal in Taiwan at the R. William Jones Cup.
The first round of Team USA tryouts went from May 14 to May 17. Of the 30 that tried out, McCray was chosen as one of the 14 final-
COMMENTARY
Early projections lead to hope for a successful team next season
Just the other day while awaiting the bus, I watched as, one-by-one, this year's men's basketball team intermittently filed into Bailey Hall.
I wondered if they all had a summer class together. I wondered if some team meeting was to be held. I wondered who exactly drove the green, tinted-window SUV that kept dropping off several different players. I also wondered if it was about to rain, but that is inconsequential to this subject.
I watched students walk by the athletes, briefly look at them, continue walking and upon realization of who they just saw, turn around and look again. I wondered if, after first thinking "Hot damn, that's Cole Aldrich," the passersby wondered what I was wondering. That, one year from now, what will these players have experienced and accomplished and how will we remember the 2009-10 Kansas Jayhawk basketball team?
Football will assuredly devour much of our attention this summer and fall, perhaps more so than last season considering the seniors whom we will see one final time.
But with the return of Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, Tyshawn Taylor honing his skills during this summer's FIBA U19 World Championship and a potentially lightseat influx of incoming freshmen
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