Friday Headlines: Justin Edwards Edition

UK fans are going to love him.

By John Morgan Francis@MonJorgan Jul 7, 2023, 6:40am EDT

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Justin Edwards is going to be a name that Kentucky fans become to love this basketball season. The Wildcats haven’t played a single game yet, but they’ll head to Canada next week to play four exhibition games and Edwards is poised to show out during those.

The UK freshman is viewed as the team’s best incoming player and could easily be the team’s best player much sooner than expected. He’s able to play both ends of the court (which fans will absolutely love) and has a leadership quality you won’t find in many freshman basketball players.

Edwards had his introductory press conference with media on Thursday and Kentucky Sports Radio was able to spent several minutes with him. Here’s what the star freshman had to say about himself and his teammates.

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

“We’re all competing, and we all want to win as a whole,” he said. “Nobody’s trying to be selfish or anything.”

“We’re just here to play basketball… We knew (Cal) was going to get players, so we just focused on the main thing.”

When asked about a recent mock draft highlighting Edwards as the likely No. 1 overall draft pick next season, the UK freshman said he’s focused on what’s in front of him.

“I look at it like rankings. I don’t really pay it no mind. I just feel like, you know, everybody has an opinion. So, I don’t really pay it any mind, just play basketball.”

Edwards absolutely owned his media opportunity on Thursday and there’s no secret that he’s incredibly mature to not even have played a college basketball game yet. There may have been some concern with Kentucky being overly young heading into the season, but it’s pretty clear their young stars are much more mature than your average freshman.