College Hoops Top 50

Last Year: 23-10; 13-5, Second in the Southeastern Conference, lost in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament

Head Coach: Mark Pope (First Year; had been 110-52 in five years at BYU, with two NCAA Tournament appearances)

Projected Starting Lineup

PG Lamont Butler, Jr – 6’2″, 208 5th-year Senior

G Otega Oweh – 6’4″, 215 Junior

W Koby Brea – 6’7″, 215 5th-year Senior

F Andrew Carr – 6’11”, 235 5th-year Senior

F/C Amari Williams – 7’0″, 262 5th-year Senior

Experienced Reserves

G Kerr Kriisa – 6’3″, 185 5th-year Senior

W Jaxson Robinson – 6’6″, 192 5th-year Senior

F Ansley Almonor – 6’7″, 244 Senior

C Brandon Garrison – 6’10”, 250 Sophomore

Freshmen

G Travis Perry – 6’1″ 188

G Trent Noah – 6’5″, 220

G Collin Chandler – 6’5″, 202

You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you might find that a well-liked former player is amenable to taking charge and leading your program towards success and a brand-new era.

Kentucky, one of America’s great basketball programs, hasn’t been past the second round of the NCAA Tournament since 2018-19, and the folks in Big Blue Nation have gotten restless. So restless that a good many of the folks around the program had started to wonder – openly, in quite a few cases – whether the Wildcats might be better off without legendary head coach John Calipari. 

Fortunately for those in BBN who were over Coach Cal, he decided to leave on his own terms. He took his talents to Southeastern Conference rival Arkansas, and the shockwaves of that move are going to reverberate for some time. If UK hadn’t owned a big enough share of the attention in college basketball prior to the Sunday night when Cal left for Fayetteville, they doggone sure did for the next week. 

To replace him, Kentucky has turned to one of its own. Former Wildcat Mark Pope won a natty in Lexington before playing almost a decade in the NBA. After entering the coaching world, Pope has leveled up quickly. He spent the past five years as the head coach at BYU, and will now assume one of the greatest challenges in the sport: satisfying the University of Kentucky and its huge, vocal, fan base. 

To get things rolling, Pope and his staff turned to the transfer portal, and they reeled in a haul of well-known names. With expectations for his debut on the sidelines in Rupp Arena barely tempered by all of the changes, Pope is going to have to hope that it can all come together quickly. 

One of the top players Pope brought in is already one he knows well. Jaxson Robinson was a consensus Top 100 recruit coming out of high school in 2020, and already played for Texas A&M and Arkansas before he committed to Pope at BYU two years ago. He didn’t play much for the Razorbacks or Aggies, but now that he’s returned to the SEC, Robinson is out to show what a star he’s become since the league last saw him. He canned the most deep heaves of any Cougar last winter on a team full of bombardiers, Robinson made 81 deep balls despite coming off the bench most of the season. For leading the Cougars in scoring despite his role, Robinson was named the Big 12’s 6th Man of the Year. 

A smooth 6’7″ wing, Robinson has grown much more confident in himself and shown an increased assertiveness when driving the ball lately, too. He’s a sound overall offensive player who passes well, moves even better without the ball, and Robinson has become quick and smooth enough to get to his spots and elevate for a shot whenever he wants it. Now the question is, can Robinson be a leading man for a program like UK? 

Though he’s yet to average double digits in scoring, Lamont Butler, Jr is a three-time Mountain West Conference All-Defense pick who was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year last winter. Oh, and he made one of the most famous shots in the history of the NCAA Tournament; you might remember him. Butler’s winning jumper as the buzzer sounded to beat Florida Atlantic two years ago was, in fact, the only buzzer-beater ever made by a player for the trailing team in the closing seconds of a Final Four game. Having proved himself a legend at San Diego State, Butler went portaling this spring and landed in Lexington, where he will coordinate the Wildcats’ defense. 

With outstanding awareness and instincts, Butler has the ability to make big plays at both ends of the floor. He’s a sticky defender whose great positioning and ability to put timely pressure on opposing ballhandlers, and is great at poking and tipping an opponent’s dribble towards a teammate or disrupting their rhythm going into a shot. Combined with his natural length and athleticism, Butler is a very difficult matchup. A defensive playmaker who gets his team out in transition for cheap points, Pope hopes that Butler will key some exciting opportunities for his new friends. Offensively, Butler is hoping to find his greatest level of production and consistency this season. He’s not a bad shooter, but Butler has not been a reliable every-game scorer yet. When his jumper is falling and Butler’s confidence is up, he glides smoothly through the lane and shows great patience and a variety of fakes and spins into good looks around the painted area. Adept at tossing lobs, Butler should set up plenty of momentum-changing throwdowns for UK, and keep things flowing all over the floor. 

To co-star at the point, former Arizona and West Virginia Kerr Kriisa is also coming aboard. A slick passer and serious three-point threat in his own right, Kriisa lives to make big shots and thrilling plays. A talented playmaker who has averaged 4.9 assists per contest over the past three seasons, Kriisa can dazzle with his passing or shooting talents. When he’s not setting up his buddies, Kriisa is very likely to be checking out a deep shot he might like. Of the 622 shots Kriisa attempted over his 76 games in Tucson, 503 of them came from the land of trey. 144 of his 189 shot attempts as a Mountaineer were triple tries, too – and he made 61 of them, good for a sparkling 42.4% rate which Pope would love to see repeated in Lexington. 

Five Stats Which Tell The Tale (with national ranks)

40.9% – Team 3FG Percentage (1st)

8.6 – Opponent 3FG Made Per Game (324th)

17.5 – Assists Per Game (14th)

15.5 – Opponent FT Made Per Game (301st)

6.3 – Blocks Per Game (3rd)

The word ‘mercurial’ has been used to describe Kriisa’s shot selection and free-wheeling style in the past, and it will likely be used again in the future. When he’s on, though, Kriisa can light up the opposition. Things weren’t easy last year with the coachless disaster that West Virginia became, and some of Kriisa’s less-desirable inclinations showed at times. With more help on this roster and a better structure in place around him, Kriisa should have the opportunity to play the cleanest ball of his career, but it will take a commitment to being coached up by Pope. The hope is that with Kriisa and Butler, Kentucky will be able to pick-and-roll opponents into oblivion in different ways depending on matchups, and to do so for the full 40 minutes each game. 

There are varied targets for the Wildcats’ new point guards to feed, as Koby Brea was brought over from Dayton to let fly when Robinson isn’t. One of the nation’s most efficient snipers, Brea shot an astounding 49.8% on three-point attempts this season: the best mark in America. He did so on an even one hundred makes, and Brea has knocked down 213 combined triples over the past three years. Like Robinson, Brea often came off the bench for Dayton, and his ability to land huge blows from downtown often proved a devastating bludgeon when utilized against other teams’ reserves. However Pope deploys him, Brea should be a similarly dangerous weapon for Kentucky.

A career 43.4% shooter from three, Brea will be a top option on the wing when either of UK’s top playmakers are running the pick and roll, and provides Pope with a threat that opponents must keep in mind whenever he’s on the court. While aggressively driving the lane will never really be his game, opponents will be closing out on Brea more aggressively than ever before following his huge year. With a summer spent working on his repertoire, Brea figures to be much more capable of taking guys off the bounce and using the space his deep threat presents to get to the rack for easy buckets at UK. 

As a contrast to the shooters, Otega Oweh is coming aboard. He piled up high-flying highlight plays while breaking out at Oklahoma last winter, and began to emerge as an every-game scoring threat. A Top 100 recruit in the class of 2023, Otega’s arrival in Norman was heralded as a great signing. After a season to get comfortable – and hint at what was to come during a strong stretch performance after the new year – Oweh became a force last year. He’s a powerfully athletic player whose explosiveness shows up on both ends of the floor. 

He will block shots, and Oweh’s 4.1% steal rate through 60 career games is tremendous – and his quick hands occasionally lead to rim-rattling runouts. Not only did Oweh make the highlights for his game-winning putback against Southern Cal last year, he threw down 21 dunks overall in his sophomore campaign. He’ll need to show more consistency as a jump shooter in order to reach the next level as an impact scorer, though. Oweh was unsustainably good from the land of trey over the first couple of months last year and finished with a 37.7% rate for the season, but during Big 12 play, he made just 20.0% of his deep heaves. The good thing is that he’s always going to be able to get into the lane, though, and that’s where Oweh will continue to make incredible and incredibly efficient things happen. 

Up front, UK has a guy who’s bringing even more awards than Butler from his old team. Drexel transfer Amari Williams is the Coastal Athletic Conference‘s reigning three-time Defensive Player of the Year, and he’s a guy who can take over the action in a variety of ways at both ends of the floor. The Englishman is one of the best overall defensive players on the map, using his great size, mobility, anticipation and awareness to guard in the post and even cause mayhem outside of it on occasion. Over the past three seasons, he’s piled up 186 blocked shots and 86 thefts, and with the type of transition attack that Pope is constructing on the perimeter, Williams should be the catalyst for all kinds of live-ball scoring chances at the heart if UK’s defense. 

Also a reliable passer, Williams has retained the perimeter skills he began to learn while he was still growing as a teenage guard, and he’s highly capable of finding cutters for easy buckets when double teams come for him. His perimeter skills are also evident in transition, where Williams is comfortable handling the ball (and throwing down huge dunks when he gets a head of steam going down the lane), and at times he will bring the ball up after a rebound. Given his tremendous physical gifts, Williams has sometimes been viewed as too passive, and his attention in the past has wandered throughout the course of games, as has his effort. While he’s still got polishing to do on his face-up game, Williams can finish a lob very neatly, and has developed a better instinct to take it straight to the rim each year. When Williams is on his game and given his passing ability, he’s a devastating pick-and-roll big. Having shown more range on his jumper each season, Williams will be displaying his versatility to both opponents and pro scouts with Pope’s Wildcats. 

To complement Williams, Pope landed a smooth-operating combo forward after his own heart in Andrew Carr. A stretch forward whose range as a shooter should be a key component in UK’s offense this year, Carr rattled home a nice 69 triples on 34.0% shooting from distance over his two seasons at Wake Forest. Like Williams, Carr is also a talented passer, and his understanding of running good offense shows as he anticipates the action before it happens and adjusts accordingly. While not the greatest defender you’ll see, Carr was actually better than advertised on that end of the floor a year ago. 

He won’t jump out of the gym, but keeps his feet moving and has both long arms and active hands. He posted a career-best by blocking 52 shots in 35 games played a year ago, and if Carr keeps it up well enough to play 20ish minutes alongside Williams this winter, Kentucky’s interior defense will be strong. After adding bulk and doing a great deal of strength training this summer, Carr now weighs closer to 240 pounds. He could operate at the 5 in a smaller, quicker lineups, and when deployed that way featured in some of Wake’s best rotation combinations over the past couple of years. This season, Carr is looking to tighten up his game on both ends of the floor and turn in his latest career year. 

Sophomore Brandon Garrison was named to the McDonald’s All-American team two years ago and arrived at Oklahoma State particularly well-prepared for the collegiate game. Unfortunately, things fell apart in Stillwater last winter, but Garrison’s skills remain on the rise, and Pope anticipates him playing quality minutes when he wants a true pivot. He’s a smart, savvy big who understands both his role up front and the larger schemes being executed, frequently by both teams. He struggled with turnovers on occasion as a rookie, but that was as much to do with the inconsistent players around him and Garrison’s attempts to make something happen than a lack of ability. 

Five Out-of-Conference Games to Keep an Eye on

N Duke – November 12

N Gonzaga – December 7

N Ohio State – December 21

@ Clemson – December 3

vs Louisville – December 14

While he isn’t an extraordinary athlete, Garrison has good hands and footwork, can scoot when he needs to and stands nearly seven feet tall with a wingspan to match – and he gives a tremendous effort every time he’s on the court. He sets great screens, passes crisply and creatively, and is rarely caught out of position at either end of the floor. Garrison doesn’t dominate as a scoring big, but he surely knows how to stuff a putback or roll nimbly to the cup after setting a great pick. All three of his 20+ point scoring performance came after the new year against Big 12 competition, and Garrison averaged 8.7 points, 1.4 blocks, and a steal per game over OSU’s final 20 contests and looks to be settling in with the Wildcats. He may not swagger in and start posting double-doubles right away, but Garrison is a clever, rock-solid young post who should be immediately appreciated by his teammates and fans alike for the range of things he does at a high level.

Pope will also be able to turn to Ansley Almonor at forward when he really wants to stretch the opposing defense. A solidly-built 6’7″ veteran, Almonor had the best season of his career last winter at Fairleigh-Dickinson. A terrific outside shooter, Almonor led the Northeast Conference with 93 made triples and a 39.4% rate from the land of trey last season. He’ll need to prove himself as a defender at the SEC level in order to truly become an every-game part of the Wildcats’ rotation, but not all teams can feature a marksman like Almonor in their orbit at forward. 

Kentucky will also look for contributions from their freshmen at times, and none more regularly than former BYU pledge Collin Chandler. Following an LDS mission which he served over the past two years, the Wildcats will be getting a bigger, stronger Chandler than scouts saw back when he was in high school. That’s exciting to BBN, because Chandler was already described as an assertive, downhill-driving guard who should be a microwave scorer off the bench. He was rated as a Top 50 recruit coming out of the prep ranks, and has looked like it in fall practices. Travis Perry is a Top 100 prospect this year, and will gain what experience he can from UK’s veteran point guards this winter. A smooth, composed playmaker and clever ballhandler, Perry should be a very solid addition to the rotation in years to come. The team’s third rookie is Trent Noah, who’s a savvy offensive player and excellent shooter who might provide real value as a floor-spacer quickly. 

“It’s in this place of humility and curiosity – and it’s how when you’re blessed with those two character traits and you embrace them – you have a chance to grow really, really fast.”

– Mark Pope

The chance that’s being presented to the Wildcats this fall is as close to a blank canvas as there’s ever likely to be at a place like Kentucky. With so many new faces all over the place, and a break from all of the same old questions and concerns, there’s a fresh feel to things in Lexington. The new-look lineup showed off great cohesion and great ball movement in their first exhibition game this fall, and the possibilities for that to continue are enticing. 

“I have a group of players that are incredibly curious…They’re veteran, veteran guys. They’ve won a ton of games, and they’ve all done it different ways. But I have a locker room that’s incredibly curious,” Pope praised the team he’s put together when speaking about them at SEC Media Days this fall. “It comes from humility. It’s in this place of humility and curiosity – and it’s how when you’re blessed with those two character traits and you embrace them – you have a chance to grow really, really fast.”

All of the goodwill of the offseason doesn’t mean there won’t be sky-high expectations to measure up to, though. This is UK we’re talking about, after all, and the only way to succeed is to win – and win big. If Pope can ride the current wave of popular support and accumulated talent into SEC play, the Wildcats look like they’re going to be trouble. It won’t be easy to face down their fully-loaded league or former coach within it, but Kentucky has the horses to race back out in front of the pack – and potentially, get comfortable there.