DALLAS -- Nick Collison isn't hiding his reason for being on the U.S. National team: He's got nothing else to do.
|  | | Kansas' Nick Collison is playing for USA Basketball for the sixth straight summer. |
"I don't have anywhere else to play," said the Kansas junior forward. "I'm from Iowa."
Well, that's not that bad. But Collison is from Iowa Falls and as he said, "there's nowhere to play."
Collison could have stayed in Lawrence, Kan., and played pickup all summer, but he was there for a spell and wanted to get more games. So, he's back with USA Basketball for the sixth straight summer.
"If I were from L.A., then I wouldn't be doing this every summer," said Collison, who will be an inside-out threat for the U.S. National Team going to the World Championships for Young Men in Saitama, Japan, Aug. 3-12.
"But you get good competition, play for a different coach and get to stay in shape at the very least," Collison said. "And for me, I get to play a different role on the perimeter more."
Collison hasn't scratched the surface of his ability. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who is coaching the national team, is using him as a finesse forward on the perimeter and occasionally as a low-post threat next to Duke's Carlos Boozer, Georgetown's Michael Sweetney and/or Iowa's Reggie Evans.
"But he's still one of those kids who isn't as good as he could be yet," Boeheim said. "He's got the potential to be so much better."
Collison, who averaged 14 points for the Jayhawks last season, will form an inside-out frontcourt tandem with Drew Gooden this season. True center Eric Chenowith is gone, meaning Collison and Gooden could be the only true, or at least the main, forwards on a team that will be dominated by guards Jeff Boschee, Kirk Hinrich, Keith Langford and Aaron Miles.
"I knew that I was going to have to do more on the perimeter and expand my game in college and if I want to go to the NBA," the 6-9 Collison said. "With Eric, there were a lot of times I had to guard a 6-5, 6-6 guy on the perimeter. But Drew and I will have to play a different style next year. With Eric in there we had to be inside at all times. Now we can open it up."
But Collison and Gooden will have to board, especially if Roy Williams goes to a three-point guard lineup.
"We're going to play more freelance," Collison said. "We won two NCAA Tournament games and we want more than that. It was almost like we were an underdog last year even though we were a high seed (a No. 4 in the Midwest). We were expected to get knocked out, but we've got three games back, good young kids coming in. We can't pay attention to the pressure."
Collison isn't fretting anything this summer.
"I'm having a lot of fun," Collison said as he traded verbal jabs with UCLA's Jason Kapono.
He should. He's heading to Japan instead of hanging at home in Iowa Falls trying to scrape up a game.
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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