Mercy sophomore guard Sadie Edwards survived the first two cuts as the U.S. Under-16 squad as the field of players was cut from 120 to 53 on Saturday. However, Edwards failed to survive another round of cuts on Sunday as the list of candidates was pared down to 34.

UConn recruiting target Taya Reimer is among the 34 players still in contention to make the 12-member squad which will play in the FIBA Americas U16 Championship.

The U-16 trials was a bit of an experiment for USA Basketball. Normally, the USA Basketball committee sends out invitations and those who accept head to tryouts. They did that in this case as well but after the initial 35 invitees were announced, players were able to apply for an invite. An additional 86 players were granted tryouts. I thought it would be interesting to see how the breakdown went and how many of those not initially invited made the cut.

As it turned out, 28 of the 34 players were in the initial group of 35 (it became 34 when Diamond DeShields made the cut for the U-19 team). The six who used to new format to open some eyes at the trials were:

Lindsay Allen, a sophomore guard from Bowie, Md.
Lynee Belton, a freshman center from Clinton, Md.
Nia Coffey, a sophomore forward from Minneapolis
Kianna Holland, a sophomore guard from Seneca, S.C.
Lindsey Spann, a sophomore guard from Laurel, Md.
Peyton Whitted, a sophomore forward from Suwanee, Ga.

Other than DeShields, the others on the initial list of invitees who are not among the final 34 are all high school freshmen:
McKenzie Calvert (Byron P. Steele II H.S./Schertz, Texas)
Taryn Griffey (Dr. Phillips H.S./Windermere, Fla.)
Erin Mathias (Fox Chapel Area H.S./Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Kelsey Mitchell (Princeton H.S./Cincinnati, Ohio)
Jaime Nared (Westview H.S./Portland, Ore.)
Chastity Taylor (St. Anthony's H.S./Islandia, N.Y.)