T-Mobile Arena to host next month’s USA Basketball exhibition
Save for one Harlem Globetrotters game and one fight night, T-Mobile Arena has been mostly used for concerts since its opening in April.
But July 22 will mark the new venue’s first competitive basketball game. Tickets for the USA Basketball exhibition game at T-Mobile Arena against Argentina will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday online at www.usab.com/showcase.
Team USA will be training in Las Vegas ahead of the Olympics from July 18-21 at UNLV’s Mendenhall Center.
After the exhibition game in Las Vegas, the team will play four more games scattered throughout the United States.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski again will head up the coaching staff, accompanied by Jim Boeheim, Tom Thibodeau and Monty Williams.
Though the 12-player team won’t be announced until after the NBA Finals, Steph Curry already has announced he will not participate. Reports indicate that other players might follow suit over concerns of the Zika virus in Brazil.
Despite that, the team will feature plenty of star power as it goes for its third straight gold medal in Rio later this year.
“USA Basketball is excited to return to Las Vegas for the start of its training and certainly the 2016 USA Basketball Showcase presented by Verizon will be the highlight of our training there,” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said in a statement. “Facing Argentina will be a great challenge as they are one of the world’s top national teams. It should be a tremendous event.”
Betsy Helfand can be reached at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @BetsyHelfand