Congratulations to Trey Thompkins and Ashley Houts who both earned gold medals as members of world championship teams over the weekend.

Thompkins and Team USA beat Greece to win the FIBA under-19 world basketball championship. If a basketball gold medal seems like a non-story, these current U-19 players were barely drawing breath when the US won its last U-19 gold 18 years ago. The USA finished the competition at 9-0; all other nations lost at least two games.

Thompkins played in all nine games and averaged 10.6 PPG and 5 rebounds per game while shooting over 54% from the floor. His most productive game was an earlier outing against Greece where he put up 22 points on 10-14 shooting. He followed that up with a near double-double against Puerto Rico.

Houts helped Team USA win the World University Games, and the team clinched the gold with a convincing win over Russia. Like the men, the women ran through the tournament field undefeated.

Houts started three of the seven games and averaged just over 19 MPG – a far cry from the 39+ minutes she averages in college. Houts put up 8.3 PPG on very solid shooting: 52.6% overall and 47.1% from behind the arc. She can’t be happy with her assists-to-turnovers (11 to 14), but she did add 12 steals on the defensive end.