Archie Goodwin, Kahlil Whitney reflect on La Familia's run in TBT, reunion with BBN
La Familia’s run in The Basketball Tournament (TBT) did not end how any of us would have liked; however, two of the team’s stars are grateful to be back in Kentucky Blue.
Archie Goodwin led La Familia in scoring (18.0 points per game), assists (6.7), and steals (1.7). He hit the game-winner against War Ready on Sunday and put La Familia on his back for most of last night’s game vs. Eberlein Drive, his former squad, finishing with 19 points, six assists, and five rebounds. Unfortunately, he missed the free throw that would have won the game, paving the way for Eberlein Drive to hit the game-winner.
As his former team celebrated advancing to the TBT quarterfinals, Archie slumped against the scorer’s table as Twany Beckham comforted him. On social media, he shouldered the blame for the loss, tweeting, “No excuses. That’s on me. I’ll get better.”
There were more reasons that La Familia lost than that Archie’s missed free throw. The team trailed Eberlein Drive for nearly the entire game before coming back with a 16-0 run in the fourth quarter. They were 3-15 from three the entire game, not hitting one the entire first half. After leading 63-58 when the target score was set at 71 points, La Familia shot only 2-7 from the field, 3-8 from the free-throw line during the Elam Ending. Three hours later, Goodwin was still upset, vowing to run it back with La Familia next summer on social media (language NSFW). After Archie opened up about the difficulties of the 2012-13 season last week on KSR, how could you not root for this Big Blue reunion to continue?
Around the same time, another member of La Familia reflected on his return to Lexington. Kahlil Whitney played a huge part in La Familia’s 16-0 run and scored 14 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter and Elam Ending. Willie Cauley-Stein also helped shift momentum during that run, but it was especially sweet seeing Whitney, who left the 2019-20 team midseason, spark the comeback. He was second on the team in scoring last night behind Goodwin and across all three games, averaging 14 points. Last week, Whitney shared how much reconnecting with the program and Kentucky fans has meant to him; although his redemption arc doesn’t include a TBT title, he tweeted last night that it’s been meaningful all the same.
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“Wiping these tears away, but I just wanna say thank you BBN 💙,” Whitney wrote. “Y’all will always have a special place in my heart!!”
“It’s always special because he wore a uniform,” Sean Woods said of Whitney’s journey as a Wildcat after the game. “You know what I’m saying? We, as Kentucky fans in Big Blue Nation, just look at it as a machine. You come here, everything’s supposed to go right, so on, so forth. But these kids come from certain situations that we have no idea what the other side of their life is, besides them coming to Lexington. And from what I understand — I don’t know everything — but that was the main reason. And you see, he up and came back and he played with pride, just like he had been playing four years here. This place is special, man.”
Even later in the night, a beloved Cat also thanked fans and said he’ll be back next summer. That was the first of three tweets Aaron Harrison has posted about the game. Like many of us, he was still frustrated by the loss this morning and even shared his thoughts on the officiating, which took center stage at the end of the game when one official claimed Willie Cauley-Stein “ain’t even hurt” (which may have been true when you looked at the replay).
Even DJ Burns, who didn’t attend UK, but played for Murray State and for Sean Woods at Southern before finishing his college career at Youngstown State, expressed his love for BBN on Twitter. Burns quickly became a fan favorite as he continually hyped up the team and crowd at Memorial Coliseum. I don’t know La Familia’s plans for next summer, but I need DJ Burns running up and down the sidelines again.
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