Basketball Beyond Borders: My Experience Playing Against the Chinese 17u National Team

The Nike Tournament of Champions is a highly competitive AAU tournament that takes place every year in a variety of different locations across the country. This year session one of western regional took place in Phoenix, Arizona. The tournament attracts a myriad of college coaches from all divisions, and top-level teams with the highest-ranked recruits in the nation. This year, one of those teams was the Chinese 17u National Team.

On the first day of competition, my AAU team, San Diego Relentless, had the opportunity to play against them. After seeing the schedule, we knew it would take a miracle to defeat a team of this caliber, but the experience of getting to play them would be worth it. When we arrived at the gym, we saw a program that was clearly at a different level. On their staff, they had about seven coaches, all with different tasks. They had a head coach, four or so assistants, a person in charge of video, someone taking stats, two athletic trainers, and even a hydration team. On my team, none of us had ever played basketball at the international level, so this was a shock to us.

We watched them warm up and it was abundantly clear that this game was not going to be very close. They had lights-out three-point shooters, fast point guards with great passing ability, and two post players who were about 6'5. The game tipped off and it ended up being exactly what we had expected. As a team, we fought hard, but they were at a different level. We ended up losing by around 35.

But it wasn’t the game that made this experience special – it was something that happened afterward that made me realize how cool this really was. Afterward, the players on the team came over, handed each of us a pin, and said thank you. It was hard to communicate because they didn’t speak English, and none of us spoke Mandarin, but this moment signified how special the sport of basketball truly is. Two teams who didn’t speak the same language and came from extremely different backgrounds were able to take the court together and share our common passion for the game. I have always enjoyed watching the Olympics, because of the elite level of play, but I never understood how meaningful it was to play against people from different countries until now.

This game is a moment I will never forget. For the 17u Chinese National Team, this was probably just another game that they have all forgotten, but for me, it was something that meant more than basketball. It was a game that showed how, through all of our differences, sports is a universal language that has the ability to connect people from all over the world.

Picture with the Chinese 17u National Team taken after the game