So let's take a closer look at Kentucky. They are ranked #15 nationally by
Bart Torvik, but were viewed more skeptically by the SEC media, who picked the Wildcats to finish 8th in their
preseason poll, behind Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Florida, and Texas.
Head coach Mark Pope was not the school's first choice to replace the departing John Calipari, but maybe he should have been. Pope finished his playing career with a national championship as part of Rick Pitino's 1995-1996 Wildcats squad, and he brings an alumni-level of enthusiasm to the job, seemingly waking up a long-dormant subset of Big Blue Nation who grew jaded by his city slicker predecessor.
Coach Pope quickly assembled his
roster of 14 players: 9 incoming transfers, 3 freshmen, and 2 returning walk-ons. He gave a press conference as part of UK's Media Day on October 8, previewing the 2024-2025 season (
video,
transcript):
"Yeah, I’m incredibly excited about our guys. It’s brand new to college basketball to go construct the team in a month, right, from scratch, from zero. I think it’s just a new — it’s just a new experience."
"One of the gifts of me, I was a transfer also, and I played two years at another school [Washington] and then transferred here. And the gift that I got was I got to recognize that Kentucky really is different than anywhere else in the country."
"We have one of the most experienced teams in the history of Kentucky basketball. And we don’t have a single [scholarship] player on the team that’s ever worn a Kentucky jersey."
The Cats are 2-0 in a pair of home games, winning 103-62 over Wright State (
recap,
box score,
highlights) and 100-72 over Bucknell (
recap,
box score,
highlights). It's only two games, so every decimal below is either a .5 or a .0, but at least we have some idea of their rotation.
PROBABLE STARTERS
6-4 junior guard Otega Oweh (15.5 pts, 4.0 reb, 1.0 ast, 2.5 stl)
7-0 grad center Amari Williams (12.5 pts, 13.5 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.0 blk)
6-6 grad guard Jaxson Robinson (11.0 pts, 4.5 reb, 2.0 ast, 1.0 stl)
6-11 grad forward Andrew Carr (11.0 pts, 2.5 reb, 1.5 ast)
6-2 grad guard Lamont Butler (10.0 pts, 3.0 reb, 3.0 ast, 1.5 stl)
TOP RESERVES
6-7 grad guard Koby Brea (19.0 pts, 4.0 reb, 2.0 ast)
6-7 senior forward Ansley Almonor (10.0 pts, 3.0 reb, 0.5 ast, 1.0 blk)
6-10 sophomore forward Brandon Garrison (6.0 pts, 4.5 reb, 4.0 ast, 1.0 stl)
6-5 freshman guard Collin Chandler (3.5 pts, 1.0 reb, 1.0 ast, 1.5 stl)
6-3 fifth year guard Kerr Kriisa (3.0 pts, 3.5 reb, 8.5 ast)
BENCH PLAYERS
6-5 freshman forward Trent Noah (0.0 pts, 1.0 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-1 freshman guard Travis Perry (0.0 pts, 1.0 reb, 0.5 ast)
Kentucky Kernel, the campus paper, has a preview that introduces every player on the roster, but I'll mention a few of them.
You'll notice that their leading scorer so far, Koby Brea, comes off the bench. He shot 49.8 percent from beyond the arc at Dayton last season (basically going 3-for-6 per game), winning the Atlantic-10 Sixth Man of the Year. When he entered the transfer portal, he was pursued by Duke and Connecticut before committing to Kentucky. Early returns are positive for them; he's hit 10 of 12 outside shots this season, a blistering 83.3 percent.
Amari Williams played four seasons at Drexel and won CAA Defensive Player of the Year three times. He's probably good for 1 steal and 2 blocks per game, in addition to doing double-double things.
This will be Andrew Carr's fifth career game against Duke. He played for Wake Forest the past two seasons, starting each of those previous four games and playing about 33 minutes per game. He averaged 12.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists in those games, scoring slightly better but rebounding slightly worse against the Blue Devils than he did in those seasons as a whole.
Jaxson Robinson was the Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year, but there was no guarantee that he would follow Coach Pope from BYU to Kentucky; he declared for the NBA Draft before ultimately withdrawing just before the deadline. The SEC media were impressed enough to name him to their preseason all-conference third team. He's the only Wildcat to be singled out.
Then there's Lamont Butler.
You remember him...
It's worth noting that 7 of the 9 transfers, including 4 of the 5 starters, are on their last season of eligibility.
This is a group with a great deal of experience, but very little experience playing together. It's exactly the kind of opponent that's better to face early in the season.
UK Athletics provides a
cumulative stats page that is of limited value right now, but I can point out a few things. Their outside shooting is 40 percent (24 of 60), but that's heavily boosted by Brea. The rest of the team is 14 of 48, or 29.1 percent. The Cats shoot 53.5 percent from the field, and 71.4 percent from the line. They average 11 turnovers per game.
Torvik projects a close game on Tuesday, with Duke winning by a score of 81-76.
