Game Thread: Scott Drew, Team USA Face Brazil in Gold Medal Game
From the opening tip until midway through the fourth quarter, head coach Scott Drew’s Team USA squad couldn’t capture the lead from a tough Team Lithuania team, much less tie the game; they had trailed by at least one basket for all 34 minutes of the contest.
Then, on the drop of a dime, a transition rebound from forward Dan Skillings led to a fast break opportunity where guard Obi Agbim found a trailing JJ White toward the right wing, who drilled a deep 3-pointer to tie the game at 59 apiece.
The pivotal trey opened the floodgates for Team USA, who ended the semifinals matchup on a 19-5 run en route to a 72-64 come-from-behind victory over Lithuania to advance to the gold medal game of the World University Games against Brazil on Saturday evening.
“In a six-game format, different people are going to step up,” Drew said post-game of White and Skillings, who scored a team-high 17 points and collected 13 rebounds. “That’s what you get when you play five games and then back-to-back games. I really credit our guys.”
White’s 3-pointer wasn’t just big for Team USA, but big for himself as well. The Omaha transfer, who shot 44% from deep a season ago across 35 games, had put together a great summer of practices but had been struggling in the tournament, shooting 29% (6-of-21) until Thursday’s matchup, where he added 11 points on 3-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc.
“When good shooters get good looks, they are going to make them over the course of time,” Drew said. “They might go through a couple-game skid, but our goal as coaches is to get shooters shots. If they get the right ones, they are going to shoot a great percentage. JJ has struggled, but he’s a great shooter. If we get him good looks, he’s going to knock them down.”
Aside from being lethal beyond the arc, the fifth-year guard was brought to Waco to serve as a connector and a selfless veteran whom other players follow, an emphasis that was particularly important after last year’s team often seemed rudderless in terms of leadership.
“The guys have talked about it, but our biggest goal, aside from winning the gold medal, is just getting to know each other, knowing each other’s games, loving on each other and supporting each other,” White said of the Germany trip. “Building chemistry is one of the biggest things for me. I’m a point guard, so I love to see that.”
White added, “My mom calls me her love child. I think I just love people. I try to show love to everyone I come across. No matter what happens in this sport, I’m still going to ask about your day, laugh with you, joke with you, cry with you. I want people to know that I actually care about them at the end of the day. I think that comes naturally to me.”
When White chose Baylor earlier this offseason, the foreign trip to Germany played a significant role, as did prioritizing relationships over financial considerations. He connected with Drew on a personal level and believes that the two share a lot in common.
“Coach Drew’s energy is infectious, and I feel like that’s my energy; when I met him, it felt like the perfect fit because it was the best of two worlds,” White said. “When I walk into the gym, you’re gonna hear me because I’m yelling, I’m shaking everybody’s hand and I’m asking every single person how they’re doing, how they’re feeling today. Coach Drew gave me those vibes. I can see him in the film room, real antsy, and I love that. I love that he cares about the game, and how it’s played.”
White also mentioned other factors that influenced his decision to choose Baylor, including his aunt working at the school, the family environment and his relationship with a family friend from Gwinnett County who had a significant impact on the men’s basketball program, National Champion and All-Big 12 guard Adam Flagler.
“Talking with Adam about this school and what it did for him and how it changed his life was big,” White said. “Plus, knowing that my aunt was here, knowing that I’m close to home in some way. This was like a family environment more than anything. I feel like I can get along with these coaches and the people here, and I appreciate how they genuinely love the players. When you graduate from here, you’re a Bear for life. I really love that it’s not just about how basketball stuff is now, it’ll go a long way.”
But before White had the opportunity to finish his collegiate career at Baylor, a lot of things went on behind the scenes for him to reach this point in his basketball journey. From fourth through eighth grade, White mostly rode the bench on his AAU team in Atlanta because he was playing behind the coach’s kid.
“I was always in the dark, just putting in work by myself,” he said. “I watched other people get accolades and shine, and I never hated on anyone. I’ve always been supportive. I’ve always been the teammate who yells and supports everybody. I didn’t play at all, so my only way to play was by myself and with my dad.”
Throughout middle school, White’s father would wake him and his brother up every morning at 5 a.m. to go to LA Fitness for training. White noted, “I knew what working hard was, but I used to be so mad because I worked and worked and worked and worked and saw no results for about five years.”
White was all but ready to “hang it up” and quit basketball altogether until the family decided to give it one last shot and move from Lawrenceville, Georgia, to Oklahoma, where his aunt was living at the time, as well as his brother, Juwan, who played at Norman North with Trae Young.
“That summer, my dad and I went to the YMCA every day, and I probably lost 25 pounds, and that changed my whole game,” White said. “I started playing well. I didn’t make JV or varsity that year. I was on the freshman team, but I fell in love with it again because, for so long, I didn’t play at all. It felt good to finally be someone and not just in the dark.”
White started as a sophomore and finally started to see the fruits of his labor. His high school coach, Kellen McCoy, spent the summers coaching for Team Griffin, an AAU team created by former Oklahoma and NBA superstar Blake Griffin and invited White to join the team the upcoming summer.
“When we got that call, it was a no-brainer — we had to go,” White said. “We had three five-stars on that team and two four-stars. To get where I wanted to go, I knew I had to go. That summer was really fun, and I learned a lot. I was the sixth man off the bench for that team, and we won Peach Jam. Nobody thought we were going to win Peach Jam.”
White returned to Oklahoma and was averaging over 30 points per game for most of his junior season, and then COVID-19 threw a wrench into all of his plans and aspirations. White noted that he “was on a super high, then on a super low” because his college recruitment came to a screeching halt.
White finished high school with no Division I offers; he landed at Colby Community College in Kansas, where he averaged 15 points and four assists in one season before returning home with no plans for where he’d go next. That summer, he received a call from Omaha head coach Chris Crutchfield, asking him to take a visit. White was already familiar with Crutchfield because he had played AAU with Crutchfield’s sons and viewed him like an uncle.
Crutchfield followed up with, “Can you drive up here?”
White, who was driving a 2006 Chevy Impala at the time, said, “I mean, I think so. I don't know what my car can do, but I know I want to come.”
White drove six hours to Omaha and was joined on his visit by forward Marquel Sutton, the eventual 2025 Summit League player of the year. The duo knew each other from playing against one another in high school and decided to choose Omaha together.
The Mavericks won just nine games in White’s sophomore year. Then, as a junior, White was in and out of the lineup, struggling to find his niche; was he a shooter, passer, combo guard or a pure point guard? Going into his senior year, Crutchfield’s seat was starting to warm up, so he brought in another point guard and wanted White to come off the bench.
White didn’t complain, understanding the circumstances, and relentlessly worked on his jumper to finally find something that worked for him, but in a pickup run in June, he broke his wrist, putting him right back at the bottom.
“I was really depressed,” White said. “I prayed a lot that summer. I would just pray and pray over it. I was really down. I’d go to the gym and come back to my room just chilling and not talking to anyone. People don’t understand, I was literally thinking this was my senior year and that I was going to have to get a job before I go overseas to play because I won’t have any money.”
White added, “Even when I was at my lowest, God brought me out of it. He told me, ‘You’ve waited your whole life for this. Why quit now? Why waver in your faith?’ He was big in guiding me and not letting me give up on what I wanted and what He wanted for me.”
White had recovered from his broken wrist and started the season on the bench, but was shooting the ball well, although Omaha itself got off to a sluggish start. When the season seemed to be on the fringes, the Mavericks created a viral sensation on December 21, before a game against Cal Poly, where they destroyed a trash can.
Around that time, White was inserted into the starting lineup, and “the rest is history,” as he likes to say. Omaha ended the season scorching hot and won the Summit League. White was the Mavericks' second-best player, averaging 14 points and four assists per game throughout the year.
Omaha matched up against No. 2 seed St. John’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and lost, but White dropped 15 points and dished out five assists. The team’s resilience and breakthrough that season was also a reflection of what White had overcome.
“It was a testament to staying down, not complaining and not hating because it can change in a second,” White said. “I really understood not to take things for granted. I know what it feels like to be at the bottom. Going to March Madness and riding that high, I appreciate it so much more. People say they know what it feels like to be at the bottom, but to win nine games and then go on a 12-game losing streak, they don’t know how that feels. To be on the other side of that, I couldn’t ask for more.”
Now that White ultimately landed at Baylor and will finish his career with the aim of winning a Big 12 Championship and a National Championship, he’s happy with the adversity he’s gone through and that he made it on the other side.
“It's just a testament to praying and never, never, never losing sight of the main goal. I think that a lot of times in the NIL world, guys can fall in love with short-term money, and money is not everything,” White said.
He added, “It's a testament to just keeping the main thing, the main thing, and it feels good knowing I did it organically. Even in the portal, a lot of coaches always told me, ‘I salute you for staying, I salute you for staying.’ A lot of guys don't stay, because that's one of the things I did. I stayed for three years, no matter what happened. I stuck with who stuck with me, and knowing that I did it the right way, I think I'm one of the rarest stories when it comes to the mid-major portal with staying down and not complaining and waiting your turn and seeing what happened.”
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