Kentucky basketball additions under Mark Pope lauded for balance on offense, defense

Posted by Admin July 25, 2024 Basketball

LEXINGTON — Until the games begin later this year, it’s impossible to know how good Kentucky basketball will be defensively. But one can project. If nothing else, it will be hard for the Wildcats to be much worse than they were during the 2023-24 campaign. In the final season of John Calipari‘s 15-year run guiding the program, UK had one of its worst defensive clubs in history.

Opponents averaged just shy of 80 points per game, finishing at 79.7 per contest. That ranked as the fourth-most points per game UK has allowed, and the worst since 1989-90, when it gave up a single-season program mark of 87.9.

The players Mark Pope has added since becoming coach provide hope on that end of the floor. Each of Kentucky’s first four transfer portal additions — guards Lamont Butler (San Diego State) and Otega Oweh (Oklahoma), forward Amari Williams (Drexel) and center Brandon Garrison (Oklahoma State) — were known more for their defense than their offense at their previous stops.

Evan Miyakawa, a basketball statistician who owns and operates the analytics website EvanMiya.com, is a believer in UK’s defensive potential.

“You look at the transfer class, I think it’s pretty balanced between offensive and defensive,” Miyakawa said of the Wildcats’ nine-man transfer haul, “but they went defense first, and I love that, because that means you’re going to build your team around guys who are really reliable defensively, and then they can kind of build the offensive system however they want.

“I think this team is going to be really good defensively.”

That quartet of Butler, Garrison, Oweh and Williams is what makes Miyakawa cautiously optimistic.

“The top four guys or so in defensive rating all grade out as being a lot better than most of the players Kentucky has had, even in recent seasons. … And I think that’s really going to show that this team is going to be much more reliable defensively than maybe we’ve seen Kentucky teams be previously,” he said.

Butler especially brings defensive bona fides to the fold.

Not only did Butler capture the Mountain West Conference Defensive Player of the Year award each of the past two seasons but he also starred for a San Diego State program that annually fields one of the stingiest units in college basketball.

“Lamont Butler is the definition of a winner,” Pope said after Butler signed with the Wildcats in April. “He might be the best perimeter defensive player in all of college basketball. Lamont has helped lead championship teams for the last four years.”

Yet for all the focus on defense, Miyakawa said Kentucky could be every bit as stellar offensively, where Pope (and assistant Cody Fueger) made their mark during their stints at Utah State and BYU, respectively.

It’s an attack predicated on movement. A frenetic tempo. And shooting 3s like they’re going out of style.

Transfer additions Ansley Almonor, Koby Brea, Andrew Carr, Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson along with freshmen Collin Chandler, Trent Noah and Travis Perry fit that mold to a T.

“I think this is going to be a team that plays together,” Miyakawa said. “I don’t think this is going to be a team that centers around one or two star players. I think this is a team that more meshes really well. And you look at how much Mark Pope outperformed expectations with his roster at BYU last year — picked by the coaches to be almost the worst team in the Big 12, and they end up solidly in the (NCAA) Tournament.

“If you have anywhere near that kind of coaching impact, where you’re able to help the sum of the whole be better than the parts? This season could be really good.”

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.