Michaels Plays First Game Thursday at Portsmouth Tourney

WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Whitman College senior David Michaels has been placed on one of the eight teams at the 60th Annual Portsmouth Invitational Tournament and will play his first game Thursday night.

Michaels, a 6-foot-7 forward and Northwest Conference Player of the Year, will play on an eight-man team sponsored by Virginia's Portsmouth Partnership, a nonprofit organization dedicated to economic development in that area.

Michaels and his teammates, including Cincinnati's Yancy Gates (12.3 ppg, 9.4 rpg) and Virginia Commonwealth's Bradford Burgess (13.5 ppg, 5.2 rpg), play their first-round game at 9 p.m. (EST) Thursday against a team sponsored by Mike Duman, a Virginia car dealership.

The Mike Duman roster includes Louisville's Kyle Kuric (13.1 ppg, 4.4 rpg) and Missouri's Kim English (14.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg).

If Michaels and his mates win their opener, they advance to a semifinal game at 9 p.m. (EST) Friday. If they lose their opener, they drop into a consolation round game at 3:15 p.m. Friday.

The tournament concludes Saturday with a championship game as well as the final consolation tilts. All games take place at Churchland High School in Portsmouth.

David Michaels

Michaels, who averaged 20.0 and 6.0 rebounds per game last season, is the only NCAA Division III player invited to the prestigious tournament, which is designed to showcase the talents of 64 top seniors in front of scouts from all 30 NBA teams and more than 100 professional teams from around the world.

Michaels, in fact, is the first NCAA DIII player since 2004 to be invited to the tournament.

Michaels is one of two players on the Portsmouth Partnership roster who averaged 20 points as a senior. The other is Nick Barbour, a 6-foot-3 guard at North Carolina's High Point University, who averaged 20.4 points and 2.5 rebounds.

Other players on the Portsmouth Partnership roster include Seton Hall's Jordan Theodore (16.0 ppg, 6.6 apg), Alabama's JaMychal Green (14.0 ppg, 7.4 rpg) and UNLV's Oscar Bellfield (9.8 ppg, 5.3 apg).

Players who kicked off their pro careers at past Portsmouth tournaments range from John Stockton and Scottie Pippen to Derek Fisher and Jeremy Lin. Marquette's Jimmy Butler, who earned MVP honors at last year's tourney, was drafted in the first round by the Chicago Bulls.

Nearly 60 former P.I.T. players are on NBA rosters at the present time, and many more are continuing their playing careers in top leagues in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.

Click here for a news release announcing the Portsmouth invitation that was extended to Michaels last week. Portsmouth is the oldest amateur basketball tournament in the country.

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CONTACT: Dave Holden
Sports Information Director
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wash.
509 527-5902; holden@whitman.edu