John Calipari started Cameron Reddish at PG for Team USA Basketball

P.J. Washington and Hamidou Diallo stole the show Wednesday as they led the US U19 team to an 89-66 victory over Lithuania in an exhibition game in the FIBA U19 World Cup games in Egypt.

However, one under-the-radar story was that of Cameron Reddish. The five-star wing is very high on UK’s recruiting big board for 2018. A big reason being is that John Calipari views Reddish as another ‘positionless’ player that can contribute in a variety of ways.

One of those came Wednesday as Calipari made the surprising decision to start Reddish at point guard. And according to Dick Weis, Reddish did well while making his case for the best high school senior on the roster, which includes Romeo Langford, Immanuel Quickley and Louis King.

The USA’s scoring was rounded out by eight points from point/forward Cameron Reddish of of the Westtown Pa. School.

Reddish is the most talented of the four high school seniors on the roster and arguably the most versatile player on the team with the ability to play all five positions.

Reddish got to play a lot there after Quickley picked up two early fouls and struggled overall.

“I thought the starters all played pretty well,” Calipari said. “Immanuel (Quickley) struggled a little bit, but he got two early fouls. That’s why you don’t foul.

“I thought Immanuel (Quickley) got two fouls and kind of screwed up his game.”

Overall, it was great to see Reddish, Diallo and Washington all contribute in what turned into a dominating win on both ends of the court. Lithuania could only score seven points during the game’s final 10 minutes with just one field goal, a 3-pointer and two free throws, while the U.S. scored 18.

After the game Diallo said, “It felt good to get out there and get back on my feet after the flights. I feel like we played well, but there are a bunch of things that we can get better at.”

Up next for the team will be France today in another exhibition game. The US hopes to win its third consecutive gold medal in the games. The games start July 1st and end on the 9th.

USA Basketball reports that the United States will open preliminary round action versus Iran on July 1 (11:30 a.m. EDT), then face Angola on July 2 (12:15 p.m. EDT) and will cap preliminary round action versus Italy on July 4 (10:30 a.m. EDT).

USA Basketball also reports that following the preliminary round, all 16 teams will be seeded according to group play results and will advance to the July 5 round of 16. Winners will advance to the July 7 medal quarterfinals, while the remaining teams will continue playing out for classification. The medal semifinals will be held July 8, and the gold and bronze medal games are slated for July 9.

Kentucky will have more than the two players on the US team in the U19 World Cup. Wildcat sophomore, Tai Wynyard, will compete with the New Zealand team.