Three members of La Familia earn all-tournament honors from The TBT
La Familia was a major success over the last month in their first year playing in The TBT. They now cap that debut off with three separate honors for members of the program.
With The Basketball Tournament coming to a close on Sunday, their all-tournament awards came out with it. For La Familia, that meant a selection for Kerem Kanter, Willie Cauley-Stein being the Defensive Player of the Year, and Twany Beckham being the All-Tournament general manager.
Kanter was an interesting addition for La Familia as the only non-former player for UK. He played his collegiate basketball at Green Bay and Xavier before continuing his career overseas. However, he did have ties to the Wildcats with his brother, Enes Kanter, being there, although ineligible, back in 2010-2011. He also more than proved himself with team-high averages of 18.4 points and nine rebounds per game while shooting 62.5%.
As for Cauley-Stein, a defensive designation is no surprise for fans in the bluegrass. They expected no less from the two-time SEC All-Defensive selection and former SEC Defensive Player of the Year. This is now his latest honor on that end after averaging 6.6 rebounds, 2.8 blocks, and a steal per game. He also posted 10.2 points on 70.4% shooting from the field.
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Finally, much of the credit of this resounding outing for the Kentucky alumni has gone to Beckham. Beckham was a player for the Wildcats from 2011 to 2013 after originally starting his career at Mississippi State. Since then, he has become a motivational speaker and entrepreneur in his personal life. Still, La Familia is his most recent success after putting together this franchise and fielding the roster with players from the past decade and a half during the tenure of John Calipari.
La Familia went 4-1 in The TBT. They swept the Lexington Regional with three victories before winning their most meaningful matchup against The Ville, which featured former alumni of the Louisville Cardinals, inside Freedom Hall. In the end, they did fall in the semifinals of the event in a 76-70 loss to Carmen’s Crew, the eventual champion which featured alumni from Ohio State, in Philadelphia on Friday. That berth in their final four left them two wins shy of the million dollar prize.
Big Blue Nation experienced a lot of positive nostalgia over the last weeks from the run by La Familia. They’ll now hope to see this become a yearly tradition for the former players, especially with how well this first season turned out for them in The TBT.