For most college basketball players, much of the summer is spent coaching at youth camps, working individually on skills or finding the best pickup game available.
There’s also NCAA-approved “summer access” time spent on campus with teammates, albeit in a more relaxed setting than the grind of the regular season.
For University of Maine sophomore Danny Evans, summer basketball is taking on a much more patriotic flavor as he and the rest of Great Britain’s U20 team gear up for the 2017 European championships set to begin later this week in Oradea, Romania.
The 6-foot-4-inch guard, a product of Leeds, England, is one of 21 players on the Great Britain U20 roster, including 10 who play collegiately in the United States. That latter group includes a second player from an America East school, 6-6 forward Akwasi Yeboah from Stony Brook.
Evans is a veteran of British national team play, previously having competed for his country at the U14 through U19 levels.
His basketball baptism in the U.S. came at Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he captained his team as a postgraduate during the 2015-2016 season while averaging 17.0 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.2 steals to earn second-team All-New England Prep School Athletic Conference Class A accolades.
Evans played in 32 games with 22 starts at UMaine last winter, averaging 4.0 points and 2.7 rebounds while shooting 41.6 percent from the field and 36.1 percent from beyond the 3-point arc in 20.2 minutes per game.
UMaine coach Bob Walsh said the opportunity to represent his country in an elite competition such as the European championships should serve Evans well in his preparation for his sophomore campaign.
“First there’s the pride of playing for your country, which I think is so much deeper and more imbedded in Europe than it is in our country,” said Walsh. “I grew up dreaming of playing for the Knicks, not playing for my country, and I think European players grow up thinking about putting on the uniform for their country. That type of commitment and dedication is really important.
“The other thing is just the intensity of the competition. Those aren’t just summer league games at the Bangor Y or playing at a park in Boston. You’re talking about high-level preparation, practices, competition, all of that and playing against great players. There’s no doubt it will make him better.”
Great Britain is scheduled to begin play at the European U20 championships Friday against the Netherlands, with subsequent games Saturday against Russia, Sunday against Slovakia and on July 18 against Azerbaijan.
The quarterfinals follow July 21, with the semifinals the next day and the championship game on July 23.
