Justin Edwards explains confidence in Kentucky entering Toronto trip

The long offseason features a nice summer break for Kentucky basketball. Next week, the Wildcats depart for Canada to play a trio of exhibition games against various under-23 squads from other countries and continents. Ahead of those games, some of Kentucky’s freshmen got their first chance to speak with media, including five-star wing Justin Edwards.

When asked how he’s feeling about the upcoming trip, Edwards obviously revealed he was excited but also expressed confidence in his whole crew.

“I’m really excited, because I’m really confident with our squad this year,” answered Edwards. “I feel like we can accomplish a lot of big things that a lot of people think we can’t do. So I just wanted to go out there and show people that we’re ready.”

He was pushed on what specifically made him so confident about the current team, since they’ve barely been together as a group for more than a couple weeks. But Justin Edwards says the competitive fire is already running hot in practice.

“Really really competitive. We’ve been playing five on five the last couple days and we’ve just like been talking trash to each other, you know,” said Edwards. “Like we all compete, we’re all competing and we all want to win. That’s like, as a whole, so nobody’s like trying to be selfish.”

Edwards was then asked who is the biggest trash talker on the team and tried to answer himself before eventually producing a name.

“I mean, I be trippin’ with ‘Tone,” he answered. For those confused, that’s senior Antonio Reeves who’s getting into it a little bit with his freshman counterpart in Edwards.

Kentucky center Ugonna Onyenso, one of the few returning players on the whole team, also touted the competitiveness of practices so far. He even thinks the new guys have brought a level of competitive spirit that he may not have had at times last year.

“You’ve always got to compete every second,” Onyenso answered when asked how to keep up in practice. “I competed but I don’t really think I competed to where I should have been so I feel like I can use that more coming into this year, showing all the other guys and they’re bringing that level of competition with them too.”

Everybody will get a look at this team in just a couple of days, so that competitiveness these guys talked about ought to be on full display.