2025-26 Roster Chatter (UPDATE: Oweh Returns, Roster Complete)

[Joneslab]

You can apparently make a Sweet 16 team with the portal in two weeks.

Need good coaching. And also the right mix of players.

Hard to take the next step. Probably will need Oweh to come back, the freshmen to be mostly ready, AND these portal guys to make jumps.

[KCKUKFan]

Hard to take the next step. Probably will need Oweh to come back, the freshmen to be mostly ready, AND these portal guys to make jumps.

That's a lot of "ifs."

The only downside to Pope's success this season is that, fair or not, expectations will be raised next year.

[Catsrock]

I don’t know that we can expect an upgrade at PG to a healthy Butler. Remember we beat Duke when he had 2 shoulders. Guy was good.

[justafan]

Personally not a fan of the way the NCAA went from absolutely nothing for these kids to opening it up to the highest bidder with no limits on anyone. Talk about a pendulum swing

The ruling against the NCAA pretty much neutered them. Just as they can't prevent them from earning money - they also can't prevent them from earning their maximum potential money. Their hands are tied.

[KCKUKFan]

The NCAA needed neutering.

[justafan]

The NCAA needed neutering.

Meh - I think this is a case of "be careful what you wish for".

Yes, the players needed ability to make money - but there is a reason the MLB/NFL/MLS/NBA have what they have - and they're far from perfect.

I always sort of shake my head when I see people rail against the NCAA. The NCAA is made up of the schools. The schools helped any perceived messes created by the NCAA.

Is the NCAA perfect, heck no - but its made up of schools. If the P4 break away with (4) 20-school super conferences, those 80 schools will be the same that have plenty of power in the NCAA setup. It'll be the same "players".

[Catsrock]

The NCAA loves to say “the NCAA is the member institutions.” But there are a whole bunch of people in that building in Indy that are not just representatives of the schools. And if they just once would address problems that everyone knows exist before the government feels
compelled to get involved then they would still have some semblance of what existed a few years ago. They absolutely could have addressed player compensation and if they had then congress would have stayed out of it. No one to blame but themselves.

[teamchemistry15]

I get what he's trying to do by building for the future. I like that some of these guys that he's targeting are younger. Seems like the formula.

With that said, we've gotta have some ready for prime time stars, which is why retaining Oweh is so important. Pope already lost Caleb Wilson and he's probably going to lose Nate Ament, so if he's not going to do with it with diaper dandies, it has to be through the portal.

I think the last few years have shown us that it's better to take decent players from smaller schools with experience who have been developing over five star freshmen. You can't be upset that he isn't landing AA transfers or AA high school kids because the transfer "role players" are in between that. Teams made up of mostly really good college players are typically the ones who win it all and make deep runs. You obviously have to have a mix of talented freshmen and a draft pick or two, but the guys that anchor teams are just good college basketball players.

Sure, we had Davis and MKG, but look at the impact of Lamb, Miller, and Jones. Even our 14-15 team had a few stars with KAT and Booker with some really good college players like Ulis, the twins, and WCS. The days of building teams based on NBA potential were short and sweet, and they're gone.

[KCKUKFan]

I think the last few years have shown us that it's better to take decent players from smaller schools with experience who have been developing over five star freshmen. You can't be upset that he isn't landing AA transfers or AA high school kids because the transfer "role players" are in between that. Teams made up of mostly really good college players are typically the ones who win it all and make deep runs. You obviously have to have a mix of talented freshmen and a draft pick or two, but the guys that anchor teams are just good college basketball players.

Sure, we had Davis and MKG, but look at the impact of Lamb, Miller, and Jones. Even our 14-15 team had a few stars with KAT and Booker with some really good college players like Ulis, the twins, and WCS. The days of building teams based on NBA potential were short and sweet, and they're gone.

I see what you're saying.

With that said, Doron Lamb, Darius Miller and Terrance Jones are all three better basketball players than anyone we will have on our roster next year.

There are levels to this.

[40bill]

You can only do so much through the portal. You need a mix of returners, impact freshmen, and transfers. That’s how all these Elite 8/Final Four teams did it…and that’s the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future.

There it is. Relying strictly on the portal only gets us where we were with one and done freshmen.
for continuity and success as a program what yochatted is exactly the course.
now we have to see if we can get there.

[Joneslab]

I see what you're saying.

With that said, Doron Lamb, Darius Miller and Terrance Jones are all three better basketball players than anyone we will have on our roster next year.

There are levels to this.

Well, first, we don't know any of this lol.

Second, Otega Oweh is a tremendous player. "Better" than those three you mentioned? No, but in that realm. SEC POY frontrunner if he returned, probably.

Third, we don't know what any of these players can be. The portal is a futures game. Who knew Amari would be that good? Who knew Johni Broome would be this good when he was at Morehead? Who knew Walter Clayton would be this good at Iona? Who knew...

You can play that game forever. Because in the portal (and with freshmen), you're running a great what-if. Even with the very top of the portal, with guys like Chaz Lanier, there's a great deal of speculation there.

And fourth, looking at those players you mentioned: all three were blue chippers. Jones was a top five type of player. That's a super high-level player that virtually nobody is going to get in the portal. Doron Lamb is one of the better guards Kentucky has had in the modern era. Yeah, I don't quite think Pope is scouring the portal for those types of players. But you'd hope through a mix of this offensive system, coaching, improvement of individual players*, etc. you'd be able to field a contender.

I maintain that when he gets there, there's going to be a mix of all different levels: freshmen, portal, returners. Until he gets that mix, we'd have to likely get a lot of luck to be a true title contender.

[40bill]

We didn't know what Williams could do until he was in this system. There are a ton of unknowns whether recruiting frosh or portal. Anyone foresee the bad fit of Dickinson with Kansas? As for frosh, who really thought Reed Shepard would be a top 3 NBA pick when he came in?

Sure there are metrics...but what's a D2 all conference going to do night after night in a conference like the SEC???

Coaches get as much info and background as they can....then its a real educated roll of the dice on any players.

[Joneslab]

* Back on "improvement of individual players":

What we see at Kentucky isn't going to be what the players were like when they left their previous schools. This is happening all over America. It's why the portal is super powerful and why it's re-arranged the game of college basketball.

Otega Oweh again is a great example. Different guy here. Those types were all over college basketball. You're hoping somebody like Silas Demary would not be the same guy Georgia had.

As they get older, they tend to get better. Kentucky fans haven't seen a lot of that because Cal never bought into it. But age has become as much of a currency as talent.

[Joneslab]

Speaking of Silas Demary, he'll take visits to St. John's tomorrow, UCONN on Tuesday.

[George]

Bryce Hopkins to St. John’s. Cannot believe it. Pitino might break his will to live.