The hype for this upcoming basketball season may be the most we’ve seen in the commonwealth since the Harrison twins announced they were coming back in 2014 after a championship loss, but for good reason.
Kentucky returns the National Player of the Year, Oscar Tshiebwe, along with the SEC assist leader, Sahvir Wheeler. Pair these with transfers Antonio Reeves, two five-star freshmen, and several other key returnees, this a talented and deep group.
With all that being said, here are three bold predictions for Kentucky basketball this season.
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Kentucky will have its best defense since 2015
The 2015 Kentucky basketball team was an absolute juggernaut defensively and was widely considered one of the best college basketball defenses of all time. They were ranked 3rd in the country giving up just 54 ppg, but ranked first in opponent field goal percentage at 35 percent.
This defense notoriously held a UCLA team that made the Sweet Sixteen to just seven points in the first half of their regular season matchup.
If you need more evidence of the historical greatness of this team, look at this deep dive done by the New York Times.
With that said, this year’s team has the tools to be an elite defensive team given the speed and length in the backcourt, along with elite athleticism and length in the frontcourt as well.
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Wallace and Frederick will be huge in setting and locking down opposing guards, and from the looks of the season opener, Reeves is a better defender than originally thought as well.
With help from Tshiebwe, Collins, and now Ugonna Onyenso down low, this team can wreak havoc defensively as they did in the exhibitions giving up 38 and 53 points respectively.
Daimion Collins will be a 1st round pick in the 2023 NBA draft
Collins is one of the most underrated players eligible for the 2023 NBA draft as he will be able to make a huge jump this season.
Standing 6-foot-9, Collins can jump out of the gym with a 46.5-inch vertical – which he has used to dunk on numerous people – and uses that to be a fantastic rim protector.
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Combining this with a stronger frame and improvement in his ball-handling and shooting, Collins can take a big step this season and catch the eyes of the NBA.
If Collins improves can showcase an improved offensive game over the course of the season, he will be a very good option for the NBA already being freakishly athletic and having such a large upside.
Kentucky will not lose more than one game in conference play
John Calipari teams typically hit their stride in March, just in time for tournament play to begin.
However, this has not been the case the past couple of seasons as they have been playing maybe their worst basketball at the most important time of the year, whether it be due to injuries (2021-22) or just bad basketball (2020-21).
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With the amount of experience on this team, this team should not take as long to hit their stride and it should be expected to see them flourish through the heart of conference play.
On paper, the SEC is still extremely tough, but Kentucky’s schedule may be a little weaker this year than last, with just three ranked games on the road. As we speak, Warren Nolan has the Wildcats predicted to go 15-3 in the SEC this season.
Last season, Kentucky lost some tough road games, so expect this year’s team – with a lot of returnees – to come out with a chip on their shoulder against teams like Arkansas, Auburn, and Tennessee
With that said, two of those teams, Arkansas and Tennessee are two of the three best teams in the SEC behind Kentucky, and the Wildcats play them on the road again this year. It will be a difficult task to win all three, so expect to drop at least one of them.
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This will be an extremely difficult task for the Wildcats – and this is a BOLD prediction – but it is feasible that Kentucky could win the SEC and finish with just one loss in conference play.
In the end, these may or may not happen, but college basketball is here and Kentucky is poised for a great run. What are your bold predictions for this season?
Winning three consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards with Drexel in the CAA, Amari Williams is most known for his defense. Transferring to Kentucky for his final season of eligibility, Williams is looking to show off other parts of his game to raise his stock for the next level. One area that Mark Pope wants to really key in on is his passing.
“He’s one of the special passers in college basketball,” Pope said about Williams when he committed back in April. “Amari can make all of the reads, all of the passes, all of the plays and he fits into exactly what we want to do on either end of the court.”
Looking at Pope’s offenses at BYU, the big man plays a key part in facilitating the offense, specifically at the top of the key through cuts and handoffs. Last season, Aly Khalifa averaged four assists per game, the third most in the country last year, in this role.
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If you look at William’s career assist averages, they are not eye-popping, averaging less than two per game last season. However, those numbers can be somewhat deceiving. Considering his assist rate, Williams was in the top 25 nationally for big men at 18%. Essentially, he assisted on one out of five possessions.
Teammate Brandon Garrison has gone head-to-head against Williams in practice and has high praise for his passing ability.
“He’s an amazing passer,” Garrison told the media on Tuesday. “Just seeing it in person, guarding it, I ain’t never played against a passer like that.”
Williams responded to Garrison’s compliments on Thursday. “I feel like I have always been a good passer,” Williams said. “I feel like that is the reason he (Pope) recruited me in the first place.”
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Pope got the big man facilitator that he wanted, and given the spacing of his offense, Williams is primed to show off his passing more than ever this season.
When Mark Pope first got to Kentucky, one of the first high school recruits he zeroed in on was 2025 prospect Tounde Yessoufou out of Santa Maria (CA), but is originally from the African country of Benin. The Wildcats have been trending for him for some time now and on Tuesday he announced he received an official offer, he announced on social media.
According to 247 Sports, Yessoufou is a five-star, top-20 prospect and is ranked as the sixth-best forward in the 2025 class. That said, he may be the class’ most impressive athlete.
With a 6-foot-5, 211-pound frame, Yessoufou is a powerful athlete that excels in transition. However, shooting 38.9 percent from deep at Nike EYBL’s Peach Jam, he is also a capable shooter, specifically on spot-ups. An underrated part of his game is his activity on defense, where with his physicality and verticality can match up 1-4, and with some undersized fives.
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In addition to Kentucky, Yessoufou holds offers from Arizona, Baylor, Kansas, UConn and many others. Already taken official visits to Arizona and USC, over the next few months he plans to visit UConn, Tennessee, and Kansas, with his final official visit being Kentucky. This will give the Kentucky staff the chance to give him the final pitch. Yessoufou plans to make a commitment closer to the end of the year.
Check out some of his highlights at Peach Jam where he averaged 21.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.2 steals, and 39 percent from three.
Lamont Butler has proven himself as one of the premier defenders in college basketball over the last four seasons at San Diego State, having earned MWC All-Defense honors in three straight seasons and winning the 2024 MWC Defensive Player of the Year Award.
With that level of defensive impact, Butler had no shortage of interest when he put his name in the transfer portal this Spring. In less than 48 hours after officially entering the portal, he had his decision, choosing Kentucky and becoming just the second commit of the Mark Pope era.
Butler’s parents, Lamont Butler Sr. and Carmicha Butler, recently spoke to KSR about how the family decided on Kentucky and what kind of player and young man the Wildcats are getting.
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“I can start off simply by saying that it’s Kentucky,” Lamont Sr. said. “Most kids in America, if they ever got the opportunity to play for a program like that, any kid would jump at it. With Lamont being in the position in life that he put himself in, it was the perfect move for him.”
While the brand of Kentucky Basketball is a big selling point, and one that Pope is emphasizing more than Calipari did, it was not the only selling point. The other big part was how Butler was going to be used at Kentucky, and Pope and his staff hopped on a plane to Las Vegas where he was working out, to do just that.
“We were at the gym working out, when, all of a sudden, we see the men in black coming in,” Lamont Sr. said. “I’m like, wow. It was the whole kit and caboodle. They were serious about Lamont.”
Before meeting with Butler and his family, Pope was already very familiar with his game having competed against him for three seasons at San Diego State in the MWC, and that certainly showed.
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“He practically broke Lamont’s game down,” Carmicha said. “He told him how he played, who he is, how he wanted to use him, his plans for him at Kentucky, and what he wanted to do with him. For me, it was amazing for Pope, who he never played for, to know that much detail about my son, on and off the court. That was a major plus, a major benefit.”
Pope’s plan for Butler though is to show off his full game. While he is known as a defender, there is much more to his game, with his father highlighting his unselfishness and leadership.
“Lamont is the type of player who’s unselfish to a fault,” Lamont Sr. said. “I was telling someone, that Lamont scored 1,000 points but would’ve passed those 1,000 points up to make the right play. There are too many selfish players in the world. Everybody wants me, me, me, me, me. Lamont is about us, us, us. I told him that’s what’s going to take him far in life.”
Those two characteristics are a big reason why Pope wants Butler on the ball, rather than off the ball which was the case most of the time he was at San Diego State.
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“It doesn’t matter to Lamont, but Pope is going to have him on the ball. That’s what a lot of people don’t know,” Lamont Sr. said. “That’s what it’s going to be, to lead the team and make sure he’s playing faster than he’s ever played.”
The primary thing though, Kentucky fans are getting a player who is willing to do whatever it takes to put another banner in the rafters.
“They’re getting somebody who’s going to give it his all on the court, injured or not,” Lamont Sr. said. “He’s going to be out there and do whatever it takes to put a number nine up in those rafters. That’s what Lamont is coming to do.”
