Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holders Matthew Dellavedova and Cody Ellis will lead Australia’s national under-19 team, the Emus, at the U19 Four Nations basketball tournament in Melbourne from 26 to 28 June.

The new Emus captain, 190cm 19-year-old Matthew Dellavedova, is a guard is his third year of scholarship at the Australian Institute of Sport. He has been a part of the Emus’s squad since 2008, after winning bronze medals at both the Albert Schweitzer Tournament in Germany and the Williams Jones Cup in Taiwan. He was signed by the US college St Mary’s (California) late last year.

Cody Ellis, son of Perth Wildcats great Mike Ellis, is the Emus’s new vice captain. A 204cm 18-year-old forward in his second year at the Australian Institute of Sport, Ellis is the only Western Australian in the squad to have previously battled Canada, Spain and Syria in group C of the Four Nations series. He recently signed with top US basketball college, St Louis University (Missouri).

In leading the Emus this weekend, both Dellavedova and Ellis will play in the same competition that enabled Australian basketball’s two most prominent stars, Andrew Bogut and Pat Mills, to gain world attention.

The Four Nations tournament is viewed just behind the Olympics and senior world championships in terms of importance to international basketball. It also gained special significance for Australia when the Emus squad, led by Bogut, won the 2003 tournament in Greece — a victory that is still regarded as one of Australia’s greatest basketball achievements.

Following the 2007 Serbian series, basketball governing body FIBA decided to run the under-19 championships every two years, rather than four, and thus Dellavedova and Ellis will get the chance to showcase their talents this weekend.

Following the Four Nations tournament, the Emus will travel to New Zealand to compete at the FIBA U19 World Championship for Men, which takes place in Auckland from 2 to 12 July.