Lexington's own Jasper Johnson named to USA U18 National Team

Lexington’s own Jasper Johnson, a five-star guard in the class of 2025 and the son of former Kentucky football star Dennis Johnson, will be representing the United States at the 2024 FIBA U18 Men’s AmeriCup in Buenos Aires.

Originally a member of the 28-man roster to open training camp in Colorado Springs this past weekend, Johnson made the initial cut of 18 before the final 12-man roster was announced Tuesday. The dynamic scoring guard will compete for a gold medal alongside his teammates in Argentina from June 3-9.

Joining Johnson? ’25 five-star guard Darius Acuff Jr., ’25 five-star wing Nate Ament, ’25 five-star guard Mikel Brown Jr., ’25 four-star guard Jeremiah Fears, ’25 four-star wing Shelton Henderson, ’24 four-star center Daniel Jacobsen, ’24 four-star forward Morez Johnson Jr., ’25 four-star wing Nikolas Khamenia, ’25 five-star guard Trey McKenney, ’24 five-star center Patrick Ngongba II and ’24 four-star wing Derrion Reid.

Georgetown’s own and Great Crossing star Malachi Moreno made the initial 18-man cut but was left off the final roster.

All 12 participating players will be making their national team debuts with USA Basketball. They will be coached by Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd with Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland and Notre Dame’s Micah Shrewsberry serving as assistants.

What can fans expect as they follow along next week at the 2024 FIBA U18 Men’s AmeriCup? USA Basketball will open Group B play with Argentina, Belize and Brazil, the U.S. men set to take on Argentina in their opening game on June 3 at 7:10 p.m. ET. From there, the USA will face Belize on June 4 before closing out Group B play against Brazil on June 5 — both games tipping off at 4:40 p.m. ET.

USA Basketball has won 10 gold medals in 12 iterations of this event, including six straight dating back to 2010. In addition to the United States, Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela will compete with the top four teams earning a berth to the 2025 FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup. 

Now, a homegrown talent from Lexington will be pushing to make it seven consecutive gold medals for the USA. Doesn’t get much better than that.