Jul. 12—Curiosity about what this University of Kentucky basketball team may look like will soon begin to be satisfied.
The Wildcats will be Team USA in the GLOBL JAM tournament for U23 national teams that starts Wednesday in Toronto, Canada.
Kentucky will open up against Germany at 12:30 p.m. CT Wednesday in a game televised on CBS Sports Network.
Kentucky will meet Canada on Thursday at 7 p.m. CT and will be tape delayed to 11 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network.
Kentucky plays Africa on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. CT live on CBS Sports Network.
Those games will determine if Kentucky will play in the Gold Medal game, which is next Sunday at 7 p.m. and will be live on CBS Sports Network if UK is playing.
This will be the first time against outside competition for Kentucky, which had 10 practice days in front of the 4-team event.
Kentucky will be decidedly the youngest team there with seven freshmen and two sophomores claiming nine of its 12 scholarships.
Aaron Bradshaw, Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, Reed Sheppard and DJ Wagner were then core of the top ranked freshman class coming into college basketball this season.
Antonio Reeves, a fifth-year guard who was Kentucky’s best outside scoring threat last season, is the only really experienced player for the Wildcats.
Kentucky will be a definite size disadvantage against most of these teams, with only Ugonna Onyenso at 6-foot-11 going since the 7-footer Bradshaw is out for this trip after surgery. Tre Mitchell is 6-9 and will see a lot of time inside during this trip to Toronto.
Bent Leuchten is a 7-footer for Germany who averaged 9.3 points and 5.7 rebounds as a sophomore at UC Irvine last season.
Johannes Patrick is a 6-foot guard who averaged 14.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists a game in a high level of German professional ball last season.
Six of the German players at 6-7 or taller and the team has a couple of 7-footers.
Kentucky will go against a hometown Canada team Thursday night that has some experienced college players.
Kellen Tynes is a 6-3 guard who scored 14.3 points a game for Maine last season. Marko Maletic, a 6-6 guard, scored 15.9 points a game for LIU and is an effective 3-point shooter.
Kentucky will meet a team from Africa on Saturday that has plenty of height that can also take up space.
Emmanuel Okorafor is a 6-10 inside player who joined Louisville in the 2022-23 season.
Nelly Joseph is a 6-10 forward who averaged 14.9 points, 9.3 rebounds for Rick Pitino’s team at Iona in 2022-23. Joseph transferred to New Mexico.
Aly Khafila is a 6-11 post player who averaged 11.7 points last season at Charlotte and is considered a top passing big man in the country. He went to the transfer portal and will play next year at BYU for coach Mark Pope, who played for Pitino at Kentucky.
Babacar Faye, a 6-8 forward, will play at Western Kentucky University next season after transferring this spring.
With what Kentucky will see on this trip from an experience, size, and strength standpoint going against a number of professional players, UK coach John Calipari sent a message out on social media after Saturday’s last practice in Lexington.
“We have a team right now that is learning, having fun, encouraging each other and being really coachable. Practice has been a lot of fun so far and they are working hard,” Calipari wrote. “But we are heading to play in an event that will require us to be even more physical and compete even harder against these older players. There will be grabbing and physicality. That’s FIBA basketball. Will we be physical enough and have enough fight to compete? Baylor went 1-4 in this event last year so we know the challenge.
“There’s going to be a lot of randomness to how we play but we are a really unselfish group and can score in a variety of ways.”
At the least, Kentucky will know much more about itself after these matchups in Toronto.
