If it feels like you’ve been reading a lot of posts about D.J. White lately, well, you have. For the second straight game, D.J. scored 22 points (he also grabbed 13 rebounds) in a U.S. victory.

This time, it was a 84-58 blowout win over the Virgin Islands. Afterwards, Villanova and Pan Am head coach Jay Wright had some words of praise for Mr. White.

“D.J.’s probably played the most minutes of anybody and he’s been our go-to guy. When it’s tough and we need a basket, we go to D.J. and he’s made the right play every time. He’s doing a good job on the defensive end, too. I’m really impressed with him,” he said.

A lot of you already know this, but for those who don’t, I’m calling it right now: It’s going to be a monster year for D.J.

Think All-American teams and a top contender for Big 10 Player of the Year. He’s playing like he wants to be a first round draft pick. And if he continues at this pace, I wouldn’t put it past him.

The U.S. will finish up Pan Am play later today against Panama in the 5th place game.

Update: The U.S. downed Panama, 77-74, to capture 5th place in the Pan American Games. D.J. White scored 14 points, grabbed six rebounds and had two blocked shots.

Although the U.S. will not medal in the Pan American Games, Indiana Basketball fans certainly have something to be excited about. That something would be the play of D.J. White.

With his team out of medal contention following disappointing loses to Uruguay and Panana, White led the the way with 22 points, seven rebounds and two blocked shots as the U.S. downed Argentina, 74-71 on Friday night.

Here’s what the I.U. senior-to-be had to say about the performance:

I think we played more as a team. Coach [Wright] said earlier today to play inside-out with me and big Roy. I just got it going. My teammates did a good job of getting me the ball towards the end of the game as I got hot. So, I give all the credit to my point guards for looking at me down the stretch.

I think since we got knocked out of medal contention, we played with more of a sense of pride. I think this was our best effort so far – as far as playing together as a team, sharing the ball and playing together on defense. That’s what made us win tonight.

While you can blame the two U.S losses on several things (poor guard play and lack of cohesiveness immediately come to mind), you can’t dispute the fact that D.J. has been the best player on the roster. It looks like he’s finally come full circle in his battle to become 100% percent and will be ready to lead the march towards San Antonio in 2008.

In a not so shocking development, USA Basketball has once again failed to medal in an international basketball competition. While not as embarrassing as a group of professionals losing in the Olympics, it’s clearly not something that should be easily dismissed.

After its Wednesday night loss to world power Uruguay, the U.S. fell, 75-67, on Thursday night to another international powerhouse, Panama.

There’s no reason to link you to the boxscore since 1) It’s too painful to examine and 2) You probably don’t care anyway. For the one Pan-Am fanatic that does care, Danilo Pinnock lit us up for 23 points.

I didn’t get to watch the game since I’m not among those lucky enough to get ESPNdeportes. However, I can say with a great deal of certainty that neither of these teams had any business beating the United States. One glance over both of their rosters will tell you that.

The bright spot out of this whole fiasco is that D.J. White has played quite well throughout the course of the try-outs, practices and through the first two games. D.J. finished with 12 points and eight rebounds in the loss to Panama. White and Co. will be back in action Friday night against Argentina in their last game of the preliminary round.

- The praise for D.J. White for his performances with the United States team leading up to the Pan American Games continues to come rolling in. Haverford, a blog that is following the team, has the latest on IU’s top returning scorer:

When the D stretched to account for Foster’s hot hand, White assaulted Jason Fraser with an array of hook shots and drop steps inside. D.J.’s hook is a throw-back to an earlier era with a contemporary influence. Both the traditional sky hook and White’s “power hook” are released with one hand with the off-arm pointed directly at the basket. The sky hook circa 1976 was a finesse shot, taken from a slight running start. But White doesn’t need the momentum or the leg kick often associated with the move to pour in his points. By dropping his beefy shoulder into his defender’s chest, he adds a powerful component to the high release point in order to hit this shot from the low post.

Sounds like D.J. is adding a nice hook shot to go along with his patented turnaround baseline jumper. If it continues to develop, he’ll be even more unstoppable on the low block.

- Bud Mackey, IU’s first commitment for the 2008 class, has landed with the Indiana Elite AAU team. Currently he’s participating in the Adidas Super 64 in Las Vegas, the biggest AAU tournament of the summer. This is Mackey’s first AAU action in quite a while due to a torn meniscus suffered at the end of last season.

Also playing on the Indiana Elite team are IU targets Tyler Zeller and Lewis Jackson. Through their first two contests of the event, Indiana Elite is 0-2. According to Jody Demling, coach Kelvin Sampson watched Indiana Elite yesterday along with UK coach Billy Gillispie, UNC coach Roy Williams and Illinois coach Bruce Weber.

USA Basketball announced the 14 finalists for its 2007 Pan American Team earlier today and D.J. White was among those selected.

The roster is still not finalized, as there will be two more players cut before the Pan American Games begin on July 25th in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Here’s what IU’s top returning player had to say after making the cut:

On his thoughts when he heard he made the cut from 30 players to 14:

“When I heard my name called, my first thought was just thank the Lord for this opportunity. I’m happy to have a chance to represent my country in an event we haven’t won since 1983, so I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

On what he can bring to the team:

“I think I can bring rebounding and defense to this team, I’m able to score on opponents on the low block, so I think I can bring that and defensive rebounding to the team.”

Congratulations are in order for Mr. White and it looks like a strong possibility that he’ll survive the final cut. This is not D.J.’s first experience with USA Basketball, as he previously competed in the 2004 Nike Hoop Summit and was on the 2003 Youth Development Festival South Team.