USA Basketball announced today a trio of NCAA head coaches who will lead the 2022 USA Basketball Men’s U18 National Team, which will compete this summer at the 2022 FIBA U18 Americas Men’s Championship following a training camp in Houston. Tad Boyle (University of Colorado) has been named the head coach and he will be assisted by Mike Boynton Jr. (Oklahoma State University) and Leon Rice (Boise State University).
Assisting as court coaches during training camp, aiding in on-court skills and drills, are NCAA head coaches Matt Langel (Colgate), Rob Lanier (SMU) and Tommy Lloyd (Arizona). All coaching selections were made by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee.
Both Boyle and Boynton have previous experience with USA Basketball, while Rice, Langel, Lanier and Lloyd will make their USA Basketball debuts this summer.
Boyle’s time with USA Basketball dates to the 2013 USA Men’s World University Games Team training camp, where he served as a court coach. He was also a member of the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, where the U.S. took home a bronze medal. Additionally, Boyle was an assistant coach for the 2017 Men’s U19 National Team that won bronze in the 2017 FIBA U19 World Cup in Egypt.
“I’m honored and humbled to have the opportunity to coach the 18-and-under national team,” Boyle said. “Anytime you have the opportunity to represent your country, it’s a responsibility that needs to be taken very seriously, and I’m looking forward to doing that and working with a bunch of great young men and being back with USA Basketball.”
Boyle has 16 years of coaching experience, 12 at the University of Colorado. He is second all-time in wins with 254 and has led Colorado to 10 postseason appearances, including the 2022 NIT. Boyle is the first coach in school history to lead the program to three-straight NCAA Tournaments in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Boynton functioned as a court coach for the 2021 USA U19 team during training camp in Fort Worth, Texas, before the team won gold at the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup. As head coach at Oklahoma State University, Boynton has compiled 87 wins through five seasons. In the 2021-22 season, Boynton helped OSU finish fifth in the Big 12 for the second-straight season, marking the first time the program finished in the top five in the Big 12 standings in back-to-back seasons since 2005.
Rice is the winningest coach in Boise State men’s basketball history, having tallied nine 20-win seasons and seven postseason appearances during his 12 years leading the program, including the 2022 NCAA Tournament. The two-time Mountain West Coach of the Year led the Broncos to the regular-season and tournament titles this past year, just the fifth time a program has accomplished the feat in the history of the league.
“Working with this coaching staff is an opportunity for me to grow professionally, and for us to grow professionally together,” Boyle said. “That’s what is great about these kinds of experiences. I’ve had two of them previously with John Calipari and Danny Manning and Mark Few and Mike Brown. So having the opportunity to learn and grow with Leon and Mike is something that I look forward to as well.”
In 2021-22, Langel became the winningest head coach in Colgate men’s basketball history, as he guided the Raiders to their third Patriot League championship in four years. Colgate has been a No. 14 seed in each of the last two NCAA Tournaments, the highest seed in program history.
Lanier was recently hired at SMU after three seasons as the head coach at Georgia State where he went 53-30 overall, won the Sun Belt Tournament in 2022 and advanced to the 2022 NCAA Tournament. In addition to being the head coach at Georgia State and Siena, he served as a bench coach at Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Rutgers and his alma mater St. Bonaventure.
Lloyd joined the University of Arizona in April 2021 after serving as an assistant at Gonzaga for 22 seasons. In his first season at the helm, he led the program to a 33-4 record, which included a Pac-12 regular season and tournament championship, as well as an NCAA Tournament run to the Sweet 16.
The U.S. won gold at the 2018 FIBA U18 Americas Championship and has won gold at nine of 11 FIBA Americas U18 Championships since the event’s inception in 1990.
https://www.usab.com/news-events/news/2022/05/2022-mu18-coaches.aspx
