With Justin Edwards leading the way, Kentucky basketball wins GLOBL JAM gold medal
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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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So much for the idea of a green team struggling its way through an international tournament in July.
Kentucky beat Canada 89-72 on Sunday night in Toronto to win the GLOBL JAM gold medal and finish 4-0 in official competition at the four-team, FIBA-affiliated event.
Star freshman Justin Edwards — a projected lottery pick in next year’s NBA Draft — saved his best performance of the tournament for its most meaningful game, finishing with 23 points. Edwards — a 6-foot-8 wing from Philadelphia — averaged 11.7 points over UK’s first three games of the GLOBL JAM, with fifth-year senior Antonio Reeves leading the Wildcats in scoring in all of those earlier contests.
Edwards scored from all three levels in Sunday’s finale, hitting threes but also using his unique blend of size and playmaking ability to get to the basket and create opportunities for himself off the dribble. He was 10-for-20 from the field, with seven rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots.
After mixing up his starting five throughout the first few days of the tournament, UK Coach John Calipari went with what was likely his best lineup to begin Sunday’s game: D.J. Wagner, Reeves, Edwards, Adou Thiero and Tre Mitchell (as sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso remained out with an ankle injury suffered in Tuesday’s closed-door scrimmage against Africa).
That group helped the Wildcats get out to a double-digit lead relatively early, and Kentucky led Canada 25-14 by the end of the first quarter, Edwards leading the way with 10 points at that stage in the game. He had a team-high 17 points at halftime and added a couple of quick buckets in the opening minutes of the third quarter.
Mitchell, the fifth-year college grad who transferred in from West Virginia less than a month ago, did plenty, too. The 6-9 power forward — forced into action as a small-ball “5” with Onyenso and freshman 7-footer Aaron Bradshaw sidelined — tallied 18 points, 11 rebounds and five assists for the Wildcats, playing a team-high 36 minutes.
Reeves, who had at least 23 points in UK’s first three games, finished with 18 points and went 4-for-8 from three-point range. Wagner also scored in double figures, with 13 points plus six assists and two steals, again showing off his ability to blow by defenders on the perimeter and finish at the basket.
Reigning Kentucky Mr. Basketball Reed Sheppard added five assists off the bench. He scored only two points but took just two shots from the field in 16 minutes.
The Baylor Bears played in the inaugural GLOBL JAM last year, ending up with a 1-4 record. That Baylor team went on to finish the 2022-23 college basketball season as the No. 11 team in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll, entering the NCAA Tournament as a 3 seed.
That outcome — along with Kentucky’s youth and inexperience as a team — led Calipari to warn going into this tournament that his Wildcats could realistically go 0-4 in the event.
Instead, the Cats beat Africa in a scrimmage Tuesday, then swept Germany, Canada and Africa in pool play — blowing out the Canadians and leading the other two relatively comfortably down the stretch — before another lopsided victory over the host team Sunday at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Canada completed a comeback victory over Germany in overtime on Saturday night to secure its spot opposite Kentucky in the gold medal game.
Exhibition results in July won’t matter at all when the real games begin in November, but Kentucky’s trip north sent a signal that the Cats’ could be a handful once the 2023-24 season arrives.
This story was originally published July 16, 2023 at 10:07 PM.
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