Kansas signee Taylen Kinney smiles from behind the Kansas bench on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Incoming Kansas signee Taylen Kinney has been named to the United States’ under-18 national men’s basketball team, USA Basketball announced on Wednesday morning.

Kinney is a 6-foot-2 point guard from Newport, Kentucky, who played at Overtime Elite and ranks among the top players at his position in the class of 2026. He averaged 18.8 points and 6.1 assists as a senior at OTE and was a McDonald’s All-American.

Kinney will be one of the older players on the international squad as he turned 18 on Jan. 19; participants must have been born on or after Jan. 1, 2008. He qualified for the roster by making the cut from a 32-participant field that attended a camp at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which lasted for six days beginning on May 21.

Kinney and his 11 teammates will now represent the United States in the 2026 FIBA U18 Men’s AmeriCup in Leon, Mexico, beginning on Monday. It will be the international debut for each of the players involved.

Another future Jayhawk, forward Davion Adkins from Arlington, Texas, made the initial cut down to 19 competitors, but did not reach the final 12. Neither player was completely new to USA Basketball. Adkins had taken part in an under-17 camp in 2024, while Kinney was in both a 2024 under-17 camp and a 2025 under-19 camp.

The under-18 team is coached by Dayton’s Anthony Grant with assistance from Alabama’s Nate Oats and Colgate’s Matt Langel.

The United States has won 11 of the 13 instances in which this event has been contested. The top four nations from this year’s edition will qualify for the under-19 World Cup in Czechia next year.

The rest of the team includes Bruce Branch III (who will play at BYU), Quentin Coleman (Illinois), Adan Diggs, Caleb Gaskins (Miami), Demarcus Henry, Jasiah Jervis (Michigan State), Malachi Jordan, Colben Landrew (UConn), Ethan Taylor (Michigan State), Davion Thompson and Darius Wabbington.

Kinney may not be the only Jayhawk who gets the chance to play internationally. Fellow McDonald’s All-American and KU women’s basketball and volleyball athlete Cydnee Bryant will be one of 22 players in camp in Colorado Springs beginning on Saturday vying for 12 spots to go to the women’s under-18 AmeriCup in Irapuato, Mexico. It is Bryant’s USA Basketball debut.