For one Kentucky basketball player, the GLOBL JAM could be a chance to show major progress
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Kentucky at the 2023 GLOBL JAM
Click below to read all of the coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com from the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team’s gold-medal winning performance in Canada.
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Oscar Tshiebwe is gone. So are Jacob Toppin, Lance Ware and Daimion Collins, just about every other Kentucky basketball player with size on last season’s team.
Aaron Bradshaw — the tallest player on the Wildcats’ current roster — is hurt. There’s no firm timeline for the 7-footer’s return. One of the few certainties with him is that he won’t play for UK during this week’s trip to Canada for the GLOBL JAM exhibition tournament.
That left Ugonna Onyenso as the only center in the Cats’ travel party up north.
And that makes this a mighty large opportunity for the sophomore big man.
It’s one he’s been waiting for, and — now that it’s here — he hopes to take full advantage.
“It’s about getting ready, getting prepared,” Onyenso said. “When you get the minutes, what are you going to do with the minutes? That’s what it comes down to.”
Coming into this week’s Canada trip, getting minutes didn’t look like it was going to be any problem for Onyenso, though he, too, was the subject of an injury scare in the Wildcats’ closed-door scrimmage Tuesday afternoon. Onyenso had to be helped off the court after suffering a lower-body injury during the session, and UK Coach John Calipari announced Wednesday morning that he would be unable to play in the team’s GLOBL JAM opener against Germany later that day.
Calipari did not rule Onyenso out for the remaining three games in the tournament, though he said in his pregame radio interview that he was unlikely to play. The UK coach did note that Onyenso had six blocked shots in a victory over Africa in Tuesday’s scrimmage, another good sign for his progression.
If Onyenso can get back on the court this week, it’ll be a chance to show everyone else what he can do against what should be some formidable competition.
The 6-11, 225-pound big man arrived at the GLOBL JAM as Kentucky’s only real option at the center position. The next-biggest player on the team is 6-9 forward Tre Mitchell, a late transfer from West Virginia. Incoming freshmen Jordan Burks and Justin Edwards are (generously, perhaps) listed at 6-9 and 6-8, but both are also officially designated as guards, their games more suited for the perimeter than the post.
Even if he recovers in time to play in the GLOBL JAM this week, Onyenso obviously won’t play major minutes now — Mitchell, Edwards, Burks and others will have to slide around to fill the “4” and “5” spots at times — but Calipari surely would have liked to have seen his returning big man on the court as much as possible against a slate of opponents that features plenty of players with ample size.
Last season, Onyenso was a late arrival to UK’s roster, reclassifying up and settling in Lexington just before the start of fall classes, missing the program’s summer trip to the Bahamas and starting his preseason preparation a few months later than his teammates.
At the time, it didn’t seem to matter much. With Tshiebwe back for another run, not a whole lot was expected of Onyenso in year one.
The freshman did fill in admirably following Tshiebwe’s preseason injury — a knee ailment that lingered into the first few games — but once the national player of the year got back to full strength, Onyenso mostly receded to the bench. He made just one appearance over the final eight weeks of the season.
But even as he sat on game days, he learned and progressed during UK’s practice sessions.
With physical players Tshiebwe and Ware bumping against him every day, quicker and versatile bigs Toppin and Collins challenging him in different ways, Onyenso says his game grew.
Those battles with Tshiebwe seemed to have provided the greatest benefit. And the lessons learned from going up against him every day sound like they’re paying off now.
“That man, he calls himself a machine. I’m not gonna lie — yeah, he is,” Onyenso said. “It’s really different. I don’t really have anybody bumping me at practice. I’m the one doing the bumping at practice. So playing against him last year really helped me. I’m going to say he was the best thing to happen to me last year — playing against someone his size.”
Coming into Kentucky, it was clear Onyenso possessed the upside to be a dominant college big man. That much showed itself in those early games, where he flashed tantalizing skills as a shot-blocker (16 swats in 110 minutes, for the season), giving Calipari and UK fans reason to look forward to the day when his game would finally be unleashed.
Onyenso acknowledges, however, that — when he arrived in Lexington — he wasn’t the physical player he’ll need to one day become. And Tshiebwe kick-started the process of extracting that attribute out of him.
In these early summer practices, Onyenso has been the one setting the physical tone.
“Oh, it feels good,” he said. “It feels really good. I mean, I feel the difference now from last year, playing against him. I really feel the difference now. They be like, ‘Damn!’ at practice. And I’ll be like, ‘Yeah. I got that from Oscar.’”
But don’t expect Onyenso to be some brute near the basket. His frame and his game are clearly more built for a shot-blocking style on defense and a finesse approach — compared to Tshiebwe, at least — on the offensive end.
Offense has been a major focus of Onyenso’s offseason.
The 18-year-old says he’s worked closely with new UK assistant John Welch — a coach with two decades of NBA experience and a reputation as being a top offensive mind — and the results, according to just about everyone, are already showing.
Welch has pushed Onyenso to be more physical around the basket, bumping opponents to create more space for himself in the paint. But he’s also been working on his face-up game, extending his shot to the mid-range to help stretch the defense and keep rivals guessing.
A lot of Onyenso’s offensive production — aside from putbacks and lobs — will come from reading situations correctly and taking advantage of mismatches. On a team likely to be filled with dynamic scorers, Onyenso doesn’t want to be left out of the point parade, but that means gaining the knowledge — and building the confidence — to play outside of his comfort zone.
“I’m trying to get buckets,” he said. “I’m trying to be like the other guys — trying to get buckets. When I get someone smaller than me in the paint, what to do. When I’m up top, what to do. So those are the things — decision making — those are the things I’m working on. When you get the ball up top, what are you going to do with the ball? That quick second — what are you doing with the ball? Low post — what are you doing with the ball?”
Onyenso’s pre-GLOBL JAM interview session was often playful — the sophomore holding court for nearly 30 minutes, a back-and-forth filled with smiles and laughs — but when he was asked if he ever got “discouraged” while riding the bench last season, Onyenso shifted quickly to a more serious tone.
“No, I did not,” he said. “Because I know what I was coming into. I was obviously playing with the national player of the year. I understood what the situation was. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to take it one step at a time. My time is eventually going to come.’ And hopefully, I think, that time is now.”
‘Ugonna definitely got better’
While he was still deliberating his own basketball future at the NBA Combine this spring, Tshiebwe spoke to the Herald-Leader and made a declaration regarding Onyeno’s outlook.
“His game has changed,” Tshiebwe said. “Ugonna is going to be big-time for Kentucky next year.”
The early reviews from his peers do indeed indicate that a breakout could be on the horizon.
“Ugonna definitely got better. I can see it for myself,” said fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves, the most experienced of UK’s three scholarship returnees. “The way he works every day. The process — from last year to this summer — I can just tell how much better he’s been. He definitely grew maturity, as well. Those types of things, I see from him, and we’ll really need from him coming up this year.”
Reeves proved himself as a three-level scorer by the end of Kentucky’s 2022-23 season, hitting threes at nearly a 40-percent clip while also displaying an ability to make shots at the basket. That’s proving a little tougher with Onyenso patrolling the paint.
“His ability to be long and athletic — you really can’t get that shot off on him, without him being over there,” he said. “So it’s kind of difficult, but we need that, when we go against other opponents.
“I had a couple of floaters, and he blocked both of my floaters. Me, personally, I like floaters. But it seems like when I try to get it up on him, he always seems to get it. It’s layups, too. Some of the guys try to make an easy layup. He blocks it.”
Calipari has made it clear in the past — and reiterated the point a couple of weeks ago — that his best teams at Kentucky have been ones that can protect the rim. The stats back that up, and the numbers also show that the past two UK seasons — with Tshiebwe in the middle — were the program’s worst, by far, from a shot-blocking perspective during Calipari’s 14 years in charge.
Everyone around UK’s program is hoping Onyenso will fill that void this season.
Mitchell had been on campus for only a few days before he noticed the potential. Before he left West Virginia following the departure of longtime coach Bob Huggins last month, Mitchell had started working out with a new teammate: Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards, a 6-11, 230-pound center. Edwards averaged a double-double for the Orange last season and is entering his fifth year of college. He also averaged 2.7 blocks per game last season and 2.8 the year before that.
Mitchell implied that Onyenso might be a more formidable shot-blocker than Edwards, noting that he spent the spring trying to get off shots around Edwards and was finally starting to have some success. Then, he had to adjust to Onyenso.
“And Ugonna’s got a little bit more quickness to him,” Mitchell said. “So now I’m trying to figure Ugonna out a little bit. Trying to figure out how to get shots off around him and that type of thing.”
The challenge Mitchell and other UK players are facing now should only help them once the season begins. That’s when Onyenso will be the other team’s problem.
“It’ll definitely help a lot, because when you see a dude like that — with that length and ability to alter shots — there’s not many of those out there,” Mitchell said. “So when you get into game scenarios, you’re going up against dudes that have half that amount of length, and you just kind of look at it completely different. There’s a different level of confidence that comes with it.”
Mitchell, who has started 92 games at the Division I level, also lauded Onyenso’s offensive game. He wasn’t around for last season’s practices, so he has nothing to compare it to, but he likes what he’s seen of the UK big man so far.
“He’s a lot more skilled than I initially assumed,” he said. “He can do a lot out there on the court. And I think that he brings another piece to the team that people are going to have problems with in the long run. People are going to struggle guarding him.”
For all of this talk regarding Onyenso’s ascension, he’ll obviously have to prove it once he finally gets on the court. This week will be a glimpse at how far he’s come and what might be next. The regular season is still four months away. Four months to improve before the real games begin.
Toward the end of Onyenso’s meeting with reporters, it was pointed out that just about everyone around Kentucky’s program has talked about how much better he’s looked this spring and summer, compared to when he joined the program nearly a year ago. “Do you think you’re that much better?” the sophomore was asked.
Onyenso offered up a sly smile.
“I guess we’ll see.”
GLOBL JAM
Men’s games in the GLOBL JAM, an international basketball showcase in Toronto featuring Kentucky as the USA representative:
Wednesday
United States vs. Germany
Canada vs. Africa
Thursday
1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. Germany
8 p.m.: Canada vs. United States (CBS Sports Network at midnight)
Saturday
1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. United States (CBS Sports Network live)
8 p.m.: Germany vs. Canada
Sunday
1:30 p.m.: Bronze medal game
8 p.m.: Gold medal game (CBS Sports Network live, if UK is playing)
This story was originally published July 12, 2023 at 6:27 AM.
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