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Kentucky Basketball Player Spotlight: Lamont Butler

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Get to know more about Kentucky graduate transfer Lamont Butler before the 2024-25 college basketball season.
Chet White | UK Athletics

All summer Mark Pope has talked about understanding the assignment, which is winning a national championship. The player on the roster that has gotten the closest to that is Lamont Butler.

Playing in four straight NCAA tournaments at San Diego State, Butler not only has experience, but winning experience. That includes hitting a buzzer-beater to advance to the national championship game in 2023.

Lamont Butler

  • Position: Guard
  • Height: 6-2
  • Weight: 208 lbs
  • Class: Graduate Student (5th year)
  • Hometown: Moreno Valley, California
  • High School: Riverside Poly High
  • Previous School: San Diego State
  • Recruiting Ranking: Three-star recruit ranked as the 38th best point guard in the 2020 class via 247 Sports Composite. Four-star transfer and 44th overall.

Butler’s journey started in Moreno Valley, California where he was born in a garage as his mother Carmicha went into labor as she was getting into the family car. He grew up the youngest of four, with three older sisters in a working-class family.

Watching his older sisters playing basketball, including his sister Amani who was a McDonald’s All-American, Lamont became interested in the game at a young age. At seven years old, he chose to really start pursuing basketball and his father Lamont Sr began to drive him to Los Angeles to play in the local youth league.

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Fast forward to high school, playing at Riverside Poly High, Butler broke the school scoring record previously held by NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller. As a three-star prospect, he was offered by the likes of Colorado and Washington before ultimately selecting San Diego State.

Starting just two games as a freshman, Butler became one of the team’s most important players as a sophomore due to his defense. Over the next three seasons, he earned three consecutive All-MWC conference selections and helped the Aztecs to their most successful run in program history, featuring a runner-up finish, back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances, and two conference regular season championships.

With one year of eligibility remaining, Butler made the decision to enter the transfer portal.

Growing up a Kentucky fan, enamored with the 2009-10 team that featured five players drafted in the first round of the NBA Draft, Butler didn’t see Kentucky in the cards for him in his career. That was until an entire roster to be filled.

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Just 48 hours after entering the portal, he announced his commitment to Mark Pope and Kentucky after an impromptu visit in Las Vegas.

Why Kentucky?

“It started with Coach Pope,” Butler said this summer. “Ever since I came to the portal he’s been talking to me. He’s just been a great person, a great role model. Just a great leader. He really believed and he really trusted me.”

Pope has a lot of trust in Butler, as he is set to be the starting point guard for his first Wildcat team.

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“Lamont Butler is the definition of a winner,” Pope said. “He might be the best perimeter defensive player in all of college basketball. Lamont has helped lead championship teams for the last four years and hit one of the most epic shots in the NCAA Tournament to send his team to the championship game.”

Known for his defense, Butler wants to show more of his all-around game in his final season of eligibility. “I definitely have a lot more to show,” Butler said. “Offensively I have a lot more game that I wasn’t typically able to show at San Diego State and that was just because of the system we ran.”

That said, he understands the assignment. That’s to win.

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Men's Basketball

How a Call with Mark Pope Led Denzel Aberdeen to Kentucky

After winning a national title at Florida, Denzel Aberdeen committed to Kentucky without ever visiting campus—thanks to a revealing three-hour call with head coach Mark Pope.

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Chet White | UK Athletics

As a junior, Denzel Aberdeen was a key part of Florida’s national title run. But a certain phone conversation convinced him to leave his home state and head north to Lexington in hopes of experiencing that feeling once again.

He had never set foot in Lexington before deciding to become a Kentucky Wildcat — and he didn’t need to. All it took was one phone call — three hours long, on Easter Sunday — with head coach Mark Pope to convince him that he belonged in blue and white.

“Our phone call lasted about three hours, to be honest,” Aberdeen said, meeting with the media in Lexington for the first time earlier this week. “A lot of it was just getting to know me and getting to know the school, the university, getting to know him (Pope), how their style was, a lot of film. Once I saw that, I was like this looks like a great guy to play for.”

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The two went on to discuss Aberdeen’s role at Kentucky in more depth, including how Pope envisions him fitting into Kentucky’s new system — a system that, according to Aberdeen, is very similar, if not better than the one he just left.

“We had a lot of great players at Florida, especially the tall bigs. Bigs that love to run there, and we have just as much here; our bigs love to run, they play defense, and they play at a fast pace. So I think the things that we’ve got here are just as good, or even better,” Aberdeen said.

Averaging 7.7 points and nearly 20 minutes per game off the bench for the Gators last year, it’s clear to see what Aberdeen brings to the team: experience, versatility, calmness in the backcourt, and championship pedigree. Pope’s phone conversation with Aberdeen wasn’t just impactful on the court — it also speaks volumes to what he is doing off the court in pursuit of the goal he laid out in his introductory press conference: to hang banners.

This phone call wasn’t just about Denzel Aberdeen. It was a glimpse into Pope’s player-first, transparent coaching approach, which could define his era at Kentucky — and potentially make this season a special one, with Aberdeen playing another key role in a deep NCAA Tournament run.

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“I know the goal is to win No. 9,” he said. “I know the fans want that, we want that, all the staff and coaches want that. That pushes us. We know what we gotta do when we come here and put on that Kentucky jersey. Just playing for the University of Kentucky is a big thing. Being here is a blessing, and I can’t look back.”

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Men's Basketball

La Familia’s Lexington Regional Bracket Revealed

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Israel Schill | KY Insider

Kentucky’s alumni team, La Familia, has officially unveiled the bracket for The Basketball Tournament’s (TBT) Lexington Regional.

The No. 1 seeded alumni will face off against Stroh’s Squad (Bowling Green) in the opening round on Friday, July 18 with a late 9:00 p.m. ET tip time.

The Lexington Regional will take place at Memorial Coliseum from July 18-22, where Kentucky will host a plethora of teams looking to grab some gold.

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Familiar teams, such as Eberlein Drive, who former Wildcat Archie Goodwin used to play for and who have been around since the beginning of TBT, will lead the bottom of the bracket. In the second round, Big Blue Nation may see a way-too-early SEC matchup, technically, with the Auburn Tigers’ alumni team, War Ready.

The name is definitely fitting, obviously a play on Auburn’s “War Eagle” call, but as a whole defines the type of play that the TBT unleashes against every competitor.

When asked about who the “alpha dog” will be on this year’s team, someone who is going to be ready to go to war, general manager Twany Beckham admitted he emphasized finding guys like that during the offseason.

“That was one thing, you know when we lost last year, I feel like that Ohio State team, I’m not gonna say punked us because our guys played extremely hard,” said Beckham before head coach Sean Woods budded in and said “they were more physical.”

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“When I sat down after the season was over last year I sad to myself, ‘I want nine to 10 dogs’, and I think we did that with this roster,” Beckham added.

The winner of the Lexington Regional will play the winner of the Louisville Regional in the quarterfinals on Monday, July 28, at 6 p.m. ET on FS1, the team also announced recently.

Below is the entire bracket for the 2025 tournament:

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Men's Basketball

Top Guard Prospect Taylen Kinney Takes Official Visit to Kentucky

Perhaps the most highly touted guard in the 2026-27 class, Taylen Kinney has begun his visit to Kentucky – Mark Pope is on the clock.

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Taylen Kinney takes his official visit to Kentucky.
USA TODAY NETWORK

Directly following his involvement with Mark Pope and Jasper Johnson at the USA U19 basketball camp, Taylen Kinney has taken an official visit to Kentucky.

One of the top guards in the nation, Kinney is a native of Newport, Kentucky. As a result, naturally, both Louisville and Kentucky are in strong pursuit — among pulls on both sides, one potential advantage Kentucky has over their in-state rivals is Kinney’s extensive past ties to the aforementioned Jasper Johnson.

The two blue bloods manned the backcourt together for the Overtime Elite RWE team during the 2024-25 season. With Johnson being the first to pull the trigger in taking on the blue and white, the onus is on Kinney to potentially rekindle the duo’s dominant guard play in a new setting.

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Given Jasper’s potential for multiple years in Lexington, the likelihood that he could impact Kinney’s recruitment is all the more tangible.

The 6-foot-2 floor general stayed firmly put in the 2026-27 class, despite rumors of a reclassification, ranking atop national lists across the board as arguably the best available at his position. And while a timetable for Kinney’s ultimate decision hasn’t yet shaken out, it’s clear that the blue and red rivals each hold a powerful stake in his recruitment.

Regardless of the rumors, if Mark Pope gets a guy on campus, there’s a solid shot the Cats can capitalize on a commitment. When one battle ends for Kentucky’s staff, the next begins — if nothing else, it’s clear that the team has already started working towards as solid a roster next season as they put together for the one that’s about to begin.

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