DA’s Logsdon reports from UK Media Day

The UK basketball team is experiencing an influx of freshmen. Eight freshmen help to make UK’s basketball team the youngest in the nation. At a recent pre-game media opportunity, some of the players and one assistant coach fielded questions about the upcoming season, the team’s practice, and all the new faces.

UK men’s basketball assistant coach Joel Justus opened up about how the competition among players (especially freshmen) has impacted the team’s play and how their work ethic has had to change since high school.

“This is the hardest [the freshmen have] ever worked,” Justus said. “You don’t come here if you’re not competitive, that’s the bottom line.”

Freshmen center Nick Richards spoke about his competition for minutes of play and a starting spot with the other players at practice and in the exhibition games.

“I’m basically the only freshmen that’s a big [a large player who plays center],” Richards said. “I [have to] compete for minutes in practice every day, it’s [going to] be a challenge, I work hard every day with these guys who actually push me everyday to get better in practice.”

Richards’ game has evolved since high school, and now that he plays on the UK team, he is surrounded with much more talent than he ever has been.

“In high school I had the ball in my hands a lot,” Richards said. “They looked for me to score a lot, well here I don’t really have to score that much…[I need to] get as many points in the paint as possible and get as many offensive rebounds and blocks as possible.”

The team has been getting used to each other as the preseason has progressed, but no one has stepped up and assumed leadership of this young team going into the regular season. It’s open for anyone to take.

“We’re still trying to find each other out,” sophomore forward Tai Wynyard said. “We still [have] that leadership role that need’s to be filled that no one [has filled yet and] it’s still open to everyone”.

With two seniors graduating and four players entering the draft, the team is quite different from last year, and as a Wynyard has had to adapt to that.

“We have a lot of really good guys out there,” Wynyard said. “The team chemistry is great and everyone gets along… We’re all just one big kind of family.

The UK men’s basketball team will start their regular season  this coming Friday November 10.