For the most part, there have been no standouts and few surprises over the first four weeks of Kentucky men’s basketball practices.
That’s not a knock on the new Wildcats. If anything, call it a dedication to their preparation.
Heading into a season — the first under head coach Mark Pope and featuring an entirely new roster — where no one knows what to expect, these Cats came to campus with a feeling that they actually had that end of things pretty much figured out.
And the past few weeks have provided the validation.
Who’s been good so far?
“I did my research before I came here,” said senior forward Ansley Almonor. “So I knew exactly who’s going to be good. Everybody’s good.”
Any surprises?
“I definitely tried to watch as much film on my teammates as possible,” said graduate forward Andrew Carr. “So I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what they like to do.”
Junior guard Otega Oweh made it unanimous.
“I knew a lot,” he said of his new teammates. “Because when they committed, I did my research, as well. I want to know who I’m playing with. So as the guys committed, I watched — went to YouTube, typed their names in, watched their highlights. And then we started making group chats. Just talking, and then just figuring out what they’re comfortable with — what type of guys they are.”
The new Cats tipped off summer practice June 17, and they’ll have a total of eight weeks on the court together before breaking next month and reconvening on campus in the fall for the real preseason preparations. That’s one hour of official on-court instruction time per day, four days a week over those eight weeks.
Almonor, Carr and Oweh met with local reporters Thursday — the first Wildcats to do so in a group interview setting — and their early impressions from the first few weeks of practice painted a picture of an unselfish, experienced bunch coming together rather quickly.
And if there have been any surprises, perhaps one has been the speed at which that’s happening.
“Like I said, I did the research before, so I know what everyone’s game is going to be,” reiterated Oweh, a transfer from Oklahoma. “But just being able to see all the guys be together and just be focused on trying to get better and build that chemistry — that’s something I’ve been surprised with. Because, I mean, we’re all new. No one on the team was here last year. So just being able to see how everyone’s so unselfish — they’re open to building that relationship and that bond on the court and off the court, that’s been the biggest thing, really.”
Ever since taking the job three months ago, Pope has talked about his new players needing to “speed-fuse” relationships. None of the 12 scholarship Wildcats have ever played together in college. Only one — BYU transfer Jaxson Robinson — has ever been coached by Pope, who has said that his guys would need to work on building bonds off the court in the same way that they approach those relationships in practice.
“We don’t have that much time in the summer to just be going through the motions,” Oweh said. “We’re just really doing the best we can to build that relationship, whether it’s just hanging out, just talking. We’re doing a good job of doing that.”
Carr, who is entering his fifth and final year of college basketball and spent the past two seasons at Wake Forest, said there’s been a lot of hanging out at the players’ lodge, just a short walk across the parking lot from the team’s practice facility.
“The lodge has been awesome for us,” he said. “We play a lot of ping pong and pool. Collin Chandler is probably, by far, the best ping pong player. We’ve gone bowling a couple of times. We’ve gone golfing with some of the guys. You try to find things that you can relate to with everybody. Try to be able to hang out and meet people where they’re at with their interests.
“That’s kind of what you do as a leader. And it’s been a lot of fun to get to know everybody and what they like to do.”
Almonor, who is entering his final year of eligibility after spending the past three seasons at Fairleigh Dickinson, mentioned bowling, too. He noted that the team attended one of the UK baseball postseason games together and have regular dinners with each other.
Earlier in the week, they gathered at Kroger Field for what everyone expected to be a grueling strength and conditioning session in the July heat. After some workouts on the football field, Pope bounded onto the turf wearing a UK helmet and carrying footballs, stopping the proceedings so the guys could play a little 6-on-6 instead.
Any gridiron standouts?
Almonor mentioned Chandler first.
“He has a nice little arm on him,” he said of the freshman, who spent the past two years away from basketball while on a Mormon mission overseas and is still in ramp-up mode on the court. That Chandler has retained the athleticism to be an offseason two-sport star — football and ping pong — is probably a positive sign for his progress.
Any others?
“BG’s got some hands,” Almonor said of sophomore center Brandon Garrison. A big man who can catch the ball? Not a bad sign, especially in Pope’s offense.
“We’ve got some good athletes out there,” Almonor added.
Back to the court and these Cats’ takeaways from their first four weeks of practice. For starters, all that offseason rhetoric about Kentucky shooting a bunch of 3-pointers and running up and down the court? It clearly isn’t just talk.
“I think it will be really, really cool to be able to play super fast and have the freedom to be as aggressive as early as possible in the clock,” Carr said. “We always talk about getting the ball over (half) court in the first three seconds (of the shot clock). That’s a really fun way to play. And not many coaches are telling you, ‘If you don’t shoot the ball, you’re gonna sit next to me.’ So, it’s a lot of fun.”
Carr — a 6-foot-11 player who put up 97 3-point attempts at a 37.1% hit rate last season — says he’s being encouraged by coaches to shoot even more from long range at Kentucky. The smile on his face said he was on board with that plan.
BYU was second nationally in 3-point attempts at 32.0 per game last season, and assistant coach Cody Fueger — who followed Pope from Provo and helps run the head coach’s offense — has said the goal will be 35 per game this coming season. And he’s expecting many of those shots to come in transition.
As Carr said, that’s a fun way to play. To defend? Not so much.
“It gets so tiring,” Almonor said. “I don’t know how these teams are going to try to defend us all game long. Especially the way Coach wants to play — so fast. It’s going to be tough for these teams to try and keep up with us, for sure.”
Oweh, who took 53 attempts from 3-point range and shot 37.7% last season, said he had been shooting the ball a lot more and a lot better this summer, relative to his past numbers. And, like his teammates, he’s been getting used to Pope’s offensive style, which is predicated on making the right reads and decisions more so than set plays.
“It’s just a lot of going up and down,” Oweh said of the pace. “Just getting a feel. The way we play, you have to have a good connection with everybody. So it’s a lot of, like, feel things.”
And that’s why building those bonds will be so important. When everyone was clicking, Pope’s BYU teams were incredibly entertaining to watch (and very difficult to stop).
“Coach has placed a really big emphasis on the summer, because he knows that his offense is really complex, with a lot of different things that we’ve got to learn,” Almonor said. “And he’s been a great teacher so far. He’s really hands on. …
“In the beginning, it was kind of tough. But Coach, he’s a really good teacher. So once you got into real practices and stuff, he was taking a lot of time and teaching us how certain things in his offense go. What the reads are. Where people are supposed to be on the court.”
Carr was diplomatic when asked if there was any one Wildcat who would be considered the early summer standout, with 15 practices behind the team at that point.
“That’s a hard question,” he said. “I think a lot of people have done a really great job. And I think, for us, it’s been really cool, because it’s not just one person every day. It switches up every single day. Different people have good days on different days, and I think that’s what I’m super excited about with this team, in general, is the depth.
“We’ve got two of everything. So it’s been really fun to see that throughout practice.”
Perhaps he wasn’t just being nice. With those comments, Carr hit on a common outsider’s look at this UK roster, which has no clear-cut stars — Robinson is the only projected 2025 NBA draft pick, and he’s a second-rounder on most boards — but a ton of experienced, capable depth.
With Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa at point guard, sharp-shooting Koby Brea joining Chandler, Oweh and Robinson in bigger guard positions, Carr and Almonor as stretch forwards and Garrison and Amari Williams at the 5, this team truly goes two-deep at every spot. (And that’s not even counting in-state stars Travis Perry and Trent Noah.)
Pope was known for his offense at BYU, but this roster should be plenty deep defensively, too.
The toughest guy to score against? Oweh didn’t hesitate to answer that question.
“Lamont,” he said with a grin.
Butler is the reigning Mountain West defensive player of the year and projects as one of the best perimeter stoppers in the country after spending the past four seasons at San Diego State, a run that included a trip to last year’s national title game.
“I mean, his instincts are crazy, and then his lateral movements are very good,” Oweh said. “And he’s a strong guard. Lamont is a great defender. Great point guard, too. He brings everything to the game. So I’m really excited to play with him. And then on top of that, we go at it in practice.”
There have been plenty of battles there, so say the Cats.
One of the most intriguing will be at the center position, where Williams comes in as a three-time conference defensive player of the year from Drexel and Garrison as a former McDonald’s All-American who showed plenty of defensive ability as a freshman at Oklahoma State last season.
Behind the scenes, those close to the UK program have raved about Williams’ play in the post over the past few weeks. When asked about practice surprises that maybe didn’t show up in his pre-summer film study, Carr brought up Garrison.
“I’d say BG is super physical,” he said. “And he’s made a really concerted effort to keep his super high motor all the time in practice and give it his all. And it’s been really apparent.”
Garrison — a 6-10, 245-pounder in the post — will have three years of eligibility at Kentucky.
Oweh mentioned Carr first when asked who was stepping up as the most vocal leader. And then he mentioned Butler. And then Kriisa. And then, a couple of sentences later, Robinson.
Those four have a combined 16 seasons of college basketball experience.
Almonor, one of the final additions to this roster, said he broke down film on every one of his new teammates before and after he committed to the Cats, and — after these first few weeks of practices — he’s pleased with his decision to spend his final year in college among them.
“Everybody’s been good,” he said. “I feel like we’re going to go out there and shock a lot of people in the country. People are underestimating us. I feel like we have a really, really good team — a really experienced team — and it’s going to be fun to watch us, for sure.”
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