Ottumwa -- Indian Hills head basketball coach Hank Plona has earned an important offseason assignment.  Plona is one of six coaches to be selected to help the USA basketball Men's U19 National Team coaching staff at training camp later this month.

The camp will be used to choose the roster for the 2019 USA Men's U19 National Team with the camp to be held at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, June 15-23.

"It is quite an honor to be asked to be one of the court coaches for the Men's U19 National Team," Plona said.  "Anytime you are asked to represent your country in any way it is a privilege to be able to do so.  I am excited about being around an extremely talented group of players and coaches and to be able to help in any way that I can."

Bruce Weber (Kansas State University) is the head coach of the National Team and Mike Hopkins (University of Washington) and LeVelle Moton (North Carolina Central University) are assistant coaches.

Plona is the only coach from a two-year school.  He will join Rodney Billups (University of Denver), Jeff Britt (Bethel University, Tennessee), Jeff Culver (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), Aaron Gray (former NBA player) and Chris Holtmann (Ohio State University) as the coaches for the first part of the training camp.