Bam Adebayo (USA Basketball Photo)
It was almost easy to overlook the contributions three former University of Kentucky players made to help the United States win the gold medal in men’s basketball.
USA captured a 17th overall, and fifth-straight gold medal, by beating host France 98-87 in the Olympic Games gold medal game in Paris on Saturday.
Devin Booker was sensational in the gold medal game. He had a team-high 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting, two rebounds and two assists in the first half and finished the game with 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting, six rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes of play.
Anthony Davis blocked four shots, grabbed nine rebounds and made two steals along with scoring eight points on 4-for-5 shooting in the title game in 20 minutes. His four blocks were the most in a gold medal game since 1984 when blocked shots became an official statistic at the Olympics.
Bam Adebayo played only nine minutes against France. He made his only shot and had one rebound.
Booker ended the Olympics shooting a team-best 56.5 percent (13-for-23) from 3-point range, which is the fifth-best percentage from long range in USA Basketball Olympic history. He averaged 22 minutes, 11.7 points, 3.3 assists and 2.7 steals per game.
Davis averaged 16.6 minutes, 8.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.5 blocks per game while shooting 62.5 percent from the field in Paris.
Adebayo, who found time to visit USA fencing to get his first fencing lesson, averaged 16.1 minutes, 6.0 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists and 0.8 steals per game while shooting 53 percent from the field for the gold medal winning team.
5 Responses
Bam was the most underutilized talent to ever play at Kentucky. Calipari had no clue about his ceiling on talent, but Riley did.
For Adebayo, I think you mean "16.1 minutes, 6.0 points", not "16.1 points, 6.0 points".
thanks larry
1 National Title for UK and these 3 players were selected among all the top players.
Anthony Davis & his unselfish, dedicated
Teammates including KY born Darious Miller produced one Title.
Devin Booker was tied down on the bench along with Tyler Ulis instead of letting them play the final 5 minutes to beat Wisconsin and then win the next game to go 40-0.
The fraud cheated UK out of #9 !!!
He even admitted it !!!!
Bam Adebayo, as Barry correctly pointed out, was a super talent which the fraud did not recognize (or refused to utilize) but a true UK guy, Pat Riley, spotted TALENT.
2010, 2011, 2014, 2015 were all blown chances with enough talent to win it all. The fraud could not even get UK to the FF in 2010 even though it was one of the deepest and not talented teams in UK history, much like 2015.
Mark Pope will get every ounce of possibility out of every UK playwr who stays more than 3 to 5 minutes in a game. He will play the BEST!!! Wonderful to get fresh start !!!
I am so proud of our guys. They were awesome. Loved each and every moment of the games, albeit I did have one little scare! But the gold went to the Best of the Best. Good luck to our guys in the NBA. I sure do miss you and hope you come back to visit often. We ARE family. GO CATS.