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.

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.