Last month, American University men's basketball sophomore guard Lorenzo Donadio represented his home country in a prestigious international tournament.
The 6-4 Italian competed in the FIBA Euro Top-18 Challengers Tournament, helping the squad to a 3-2 record in the round-robin format.
With the health and safety of all participants the top priority, the format of the European Youth Competitions was revised to ensure that teams had an opportunity to play competitively this summer. The 18 countries in the tournament were split into three pods of six nations each, with each team playing every other team in its group. Each pod crowned its own champion.
Italy topped the eventual Group A champion, Czech Republic, 66-63, handing the Czechs their only loss of the tournament. Italy also defeated Portugal (81-50) and Albania (72-43), while dropping hard-fought games against Croatia and Spain.
Donadio saw action in all five games of the tournament held in Brno, Czech Republic. His best performance came in the victory against Albania, leading the team in both minutes (27) and points (15). He went 6-of-13 from the field, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc against the Albanian squad.
This is not Donadio's first team representing Italy on the international stage. In the 2019 FIBA U18 European Championships, he scored 27 points and grabbed nine rebounds against a powerhouse Serbia squad.
With its prime location in the nation's capital, American University and the men's basketball program has a strong tradition of attracting international hoopers to play for the Eagles. Before the 2021-22 season, 11 different players from 10 different countries had played for Coach Brennan at AU. The legacy of international players continues all the way back to the Jeff Jones era as an international player has been an Eagle for at least 20 straight seasons.
