Vicky Graff Photo
How good will the competition be when Kentucky starts play today in the GLOBAL Jam in Toronto?
It’s hard to fully believe UK coach John Calipari when he says his team could lose every game even if he points out that a good Baylor team went 1-4 in the same event last year because Calipari says every time UK has an exhibition summer trip that the competition is loaded.
It certainly wasn’t in the Bahamas last summer when UK dominated its opponents. But remember UK’s 2014 summer trip when the Cats lost a game and then started the season 38-0.
Tom Leach will be calling games on the Kentucky Radio Network and I asked him Tuesday when I was on the Leach Report with him how strong he thought the competition might be. He feels it will definitely be much better than what UK faced last summer and a look at the rosters for Germany, Canada and Africa confirm that.
Kentucky plays Germany this afternoon at 1:30 EST. Every player on the German roster is either 21 or will be in a few months. Kentucky has two players — Tre Mitchell and Antonio Reeves — who are 21 or older. If that’s not enough, 10 of the German players are professional players and mod play in the top level of German basketball.
Not only are the Germans older and more experienced, but six of the players are 6-7 or taller, including two 7-footers. Kentucky has 6-11 Ugonna Onyenso and 6-9 Tre Mitchell who are 6-7 or taller with 7-footer Aaron Bradshaw out with an injury.
Germany has two collegiate players. One is Bent Leuchten, a 7-footer who averaged 9.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 18 minutes per game as a sophomore for UC Irvine last season.
— and the other two are Division I college players in the United States. Six of the German players are listed at 6-7 or taller, and a couple are 7-footers.
One of Germany’s big men is 7-footer Topping the list of players to watch might be Johannes Patrick, a 6-foot guard who averaged 14.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game at the highest level of German pro ball last season.
The other collegiate player is 6-6 guard Simonas Lukosius who averaged 11.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game at Butler last season when made 59 3-pointers in 32 games. He has transferred to Cincinnati.
Kentucky will play Canada at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Africa at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The gold medal game will be Sunday night at 8.
4 Responses
Reports swirling that UGONNA is OUT.
yep
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Lordy. I’m crossing all crossable parts for our games in Canada. It is so unfortunate that we won’t be full strength. I would have liked to have seen our full complement of players available for all games. BUT, nevertheless, Go Cats.
He is out. But we got a nice win over an older more experienced team!
Go Cats!!!!!