SE: Former Wildcat Justin Edwards Raising Banners in Romania
Jul 05, 2021 | Men's Basketball, Sports Extra
By: Austin Siegel
Thomas Gipson wants you to know that this isn't easy.
"I don't know if anyone really realizes it, but Kansas State basketball has won a lot of championships in Europe," he said. "Shoutout to Justin [Edwards] this year."
In the heart of Transylvania, Edwards became the latest Wildcat to lift a trophy in June, part of a contingent of K-State Basketball alumni based in cities around the globe.
Playing for the Romanian team U-Banca Transilvania Cluj-Napoca, the 2016 Kansas State graduate helped lead Cluj to a championship in his first season playing in Romania.
It was a season full of challenges Edwards isn't keen to repeat, coming against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ending though, that was pretty sweet.
"Basketball was the main sport in my city," Edwards said. "We had a soccer team, too, but basketball was the big sport. We were on posters and buses and the people knew exactly who we were, stopping us at restaurants to ask for pictures. When you see a bunch of tall guys, you can kind of tell."
Cluj dominated much of the Romanian Liga Națională throughout the 2020-21 season, not exactly unprecedented for a team that has been one of Romania's strongest in recent seasons.
Success in the postseason has been slightly more elusive, with Cluj last lifting the Romanian national crown in 2017. That's where Edwards comes in.
On the court, the victories for Edwards and Cluj in the regular season took place in largely empty arenas, as the Romanian league looked to play through COVID-19.
It wasn't until the postseason when fans were allowed back into the arenas, dialing up the pressure for the games where Cluj had struggled since their last title in 2017.
"The finals were opened back up to 100% capacity," Edwards said. "They love basketball in our city, and we have a really big arena, so we had about 8,000 fans and our arena was sold out. It was crazy for us to win it at home."
Before he could help lift Cluj to a championship on their home floor, Edwards just needed to get to the city of Cluj-Napoca, no easy task in itself.
To reach Romania's fourth-largest city, tucked away in the mountains of Transylvania, Edwards had to catch three flights with connections in Atlanta and Amsterdam. Arriving in the middle of COVID-19, team-wide bubbles were a part of life from the moment he arrived.
"We had to do a COVID test before every game and then go to hotels that we weren't allowed to leave," Edwards said. "A couple of teams actually got COVID, so then we had to quarantine for two weeks during the season and couldn't even practice. You had to quarantine and then jump right back into games."
Edwards also worked with Cluj to help his wife and young child arrive in Romania, despite travel restrictions due to the pandemic. As things began to open up, Edwards and his family had a chance to explore Cluj-Napoca, from restaurants to nail salons around the medieval city.
To account for the travel restrictions and quarantine, Edwards and his team were playing a compressed schedule, often three games in five nights. For matchups against teams from other countries, tournament organizers hosted games in cities where COVID cases weren't as high.
Despite all those challenges, it quickly became clear that Cluj were going to be a problem.
Edwards and his team started the regular season 22-0, "blowing teams out" on the way to a 23-3 record and first-place finish
12-0 ! More work to be done pic.twitter.com/2gTMJ3MxVU
— Justin Edwards (@Justedwards14) February 9, 2021
"Our team just gelled really well," he said. "As we started to play, we realized how good our team really was, and that's when things started to take off for us. We finished first in the league by ten games."
In the postseason, Cluj matched up with second-place finisher and defending champion CSM Oradea.
After two comfortable wins at home in the best of five matchup, Cluj went on the road and dropped a pair of games with a chance to close out the series, setting up a winner-take-all Game 5.
"People were getting scared before we came back home," Edwards said. "With our home fans we beat them by like 30."
The victory sent ripples throughout the K-State Basketball community, where one of Edwards' former coaches, K-State associate head coach Chris Lowery, was following along from Manhattan.
During his two-year career with the Wildcats, Edwards never missed a game and was the team's leading scorer in 2015-16. The Canadian international transferred to K-State from Maine before his junior season. Clearly, his time with the program resonated with the Wildcat coaching staff.
"Coach Lowery and I have a good relationship, I always keep in touch with him and his family," Edwards said. "He always checks in on his players; I see him as a great coach and just an all-around good guy."
Edwards will join a team of K-State alumni competing in this summer's TBT tournament in Wichita, before determining his future plans. No matter where his career takes him, Edwards has plenty of K-State connections to go along with his newly minted championship experience
"Excited to get back with my former teammates and play in front of friends and family this summer," Edwards said. "Just can't wait to see everyone come out and show support."
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