How will Kentucky basketball look different in 2025-26?

Can the Wildcats shore up some weaknesses while not losing any of their strengths?

Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats made a major statement in the 2024-25 season, landing a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and racking up as many Quad 1 wins as the prior 2 seasons combined. They achieved this despite losing 48 games combined to their 3 best lead guards and replacing the entire roster from the previous season. In this era of limited continuity in college basketball, what can this staff and program do for an encore?

One thing is for certain: Big Blue Nation is, as always, looking for more. In the offseason, every returning player is primed to make a leap. Every high-major transfer is finally unburdened from their previous, lesser program. Every incoming freshman is adjusting unbelievably quickly to college basketball. The offseason is for optimism. Improvement is inevitable!

When it comes to the Wildcats, what is improvement going to look like next year? In some areas, the coaching staff will likely be able to maintain schematic advantages. In others, roster changes may help shore up weaknesses. There may be some trade-offs, where last year's strengths drop off a bit in order to help patch some areas where the team struggled a bit.

In this edition of Hoops Insight, I'll look at some of Kentucky's strengths and weaknesses from the 2024-25 season, and predict where UK will get better, get worse, or stay about the same in 2025-26.

Where the Cats were very good in 2024-2025

Kentucky ranked in the top 50 nationally in some key areas, per KenPom and Hoop-explorer.com:

Preventing attempts at the rim (9th)

FG% at the rim (19th)

3point FG% (24th)

Defensive rebounding (35th)

Avoiding turnovers (40th)

Some of these were influenced heavily by scheme, as they've traditionally been strengths of Mark Pope teams. Pope's teams have been in the top 35 in defensive rebounding 6 years in a row, for example. Others are more random or depend heavily on roster skills; Pope-led teams have ranked everywhere in national 3pt FG% from 1st (2020) to 245th (2023).

What I expect in 2025-26

As a ground rule, I really am not going to include incoming freshmen in this analysis. I simply don't have enough evidence to really predict what skills will translate to D-1. So, if you think Jasper Johnson will be UK's best shooter or Andirja Jelavic unlocks something special, I won't disagree...but I'm not going to make similar claims.

With that said, here's what I'm expecting:

Kentucky will continue to allow few shots at the rim. Pope's last BYU team was excellent at this as well, with opponents taking a ton of midrange shots. A key factor here is positional length, especially among guards and wings. Last season UK was 21st per KenPom in effective height, and the 2023-24 BYU team was 19th. UK's wings may be a bit smaller this season with Koby Brea and Jaxson Robinson replaced by slightly smaller players, but the roster only has 1 player below 6'4". Jayden Quaintance's interior defense helped limit the shots Arizona State gave up at the rim last season, so he'll be a positive here. Verdict: Elite again

Kentucky will be strong at the rim on offense again. Mark Pope teams have been in the top 100 in 2pt FG% for 9 years in a row and in the top 50 6 of 9 years. The offensive scheme creates spacing, and cutters end up getting chances to score one-on-one. Mohammed Dioubate and Denzel Aberdeen have been strong finishers at the rim for their position, and Jaland Lowe's history is similar to what Lamont Butler did before coming to UK. Halfcourt spacing may be a bit more cramped due to fewer three point threats, but Kentucky should make up for that somewhat by being more dangerous in transition. Verdict: Another top-50.

3 point shooting will probably not be a strength. Last season's UK team had at least 3 proven shooters in Koby Brea, Jaxson Robinson, and Ansley Almonor. This season, the shooter with the best college stats is Otega Oweh or Kam Williams. Maybe Jasper Johnson can shoot, but how much will he play? The wild card may be Jaland Lowe. He may not be a marksman himself, but his Pitt teammates hit 6% better on threes with him in the game than with him on the bench. If Lowe is an elite distributor, maybe this UK team hits 36% or so. If not, this team may be just average percentage-wise from deep. Verdict: Outside top 100.

This team should own the defensive glass. Despite a few individual games where UK got hammered on the offensive glass, the Cats were overall very strong at ending opponent possessions after a miss. The SEC had a number of elite offensive rebounding teams, and virtually none of them matched their season average against Kentucky. A key was that Kentucky had an elite glass-cleaner in Amari Williams (5th in individual defensive rebound rate) along with wings like Oweh, Robinson, and Brea who chipped in. Mo Dioubate is in the Williams mold as a rebounder, and Lowe and Oweh are willing rebounders from the backcourt. One possible concern may be that Jayden Quaintance is more willing to chase blocks than to secure rebounds, but if Dioubate is around to clean up then the missed blocks won't hurt Kentucky much. Verdict: A top 10 team on defensive glass.

Avoiding turnovers may be the swing skill for Kentucky's offense. Last year's Wildcats did a remarkable job avoiding turnovers, especially considering how many games they had to plug in emergency point guards. One of the keys was having deadeye shooters who didn't make mistakes with the ball, as Brea, Robinson, and Almonor had a history of being ultra-low turnover players. This season Kentucky has almost nobody who fits that description (maybe Trent Noah?), as almost all of the guards and wings have some on-ball skills that sometimes lead to turnovers. Quaintance, Brandon Garrison, and Dioubate have all been turnover-prone as well. Pope's BYU teams were pretty up-and-down in this area, with the 2023 teams ranking 309th but 2020 ranking 16th. Over his last 6 years, 3 Pope-led teams fininshed in the top 65 in turnover rate on offense; all 3 of those teams finished in the top 14 in offensive efficiency. The other 3 Pope teams were 175th, 175th, and 309th in turnover rate and 23rd, 50th, and 103rd in offensive efficiency. UK needs to avoid turnovers to have a top-20 offense this year. Verdict: Hoping for top 60.

Where the Cats struggled in 2024-25

Despite the overall success, Kentucky had some weak spots last season:

Offensive rebounding (242nd)

Opponent 3pt frequency (319th)

Opponent turnovers (337th)

Opponent FG% at the rim (337th)

The offensive rebounding became an even bigger issue late in the season, plummeting to 333rd over the last month as the Cats punted on offensive rebounding to focus instead on transition defense.

Similar to UK's strengths, these issues were a blend of schematic choices and personnel. For example, Mark Pope clearly deprioritizes forcing turnovers as his teams have been in the bottom 40 in 3 of the last 5 seasons. Where might UK show improvement this season?

What I expected in 2025-26

Kentucky will be more willing and able to crash the offensive glass. As I noted above, UK's offensive rebounding issues last year were partly a product of choice due to a need for transition defense. Pope's last 3 BYU teams all ranked in the top 100 in offensive rebounding rate. His first BYU team was a horrid 344th, but the next year they improved to 145th; I'd expect similar improvement this season. Jayden Quaintance was a major plus for Arizona State on the offensive glass, and Dioubate has shown to be a monster on the boards. Verdict: UK improves to above average, maybe 160th or so.

Kentucky will run teams off the three point line more successfully. UK opponents fired away from deep, taking almost 44% of their shots from past the arc. The Wildcats were pretty fortunate that opponents hit less than 31%, so it didn't hurt as much at it could have. One of the major issues was that UK had some less agile players closing out last year at the wing and power forward spots. Kentucky should have some upgrades this year with Dioubate, Kam Williams, and possibly Denzel Aberdeen; each of their teams last year limited threes more with them in the game. Schematically, Pope teams are usually good at limiting threes with 7 of the prior 9 years in the top 100. Verdict: UK is average (180th) in opponent 3PA, but opponent 3pt FG% drops from 21st to 100th or so.

Forcing turnovers won't be a focus of the gameplan. Mark Pope-coached teams simply do not force turnovers. The highest his team has ranked nationally in turnovers forced is 138th in 2023; no other team of his has cracked the top 200. UK is returning 3 of the top 4 players on last year's team in steal rate (Oweh, Garrison, Chandler), and both Lowe and Dioubate flashed some ability to create steals, but I believe the coaching staff will focus on using length to disrupt shots rather than jump passing lanes. Verdict: Maybe they rise to 280th?

Kentucky will offer more resistance at the rim...but there's a big "if". It's a good thing that Kentucky kept teams from taking shots at the rim, because they were horrendous at defending the shots that were taken there. While Amari Williams had a strong defensive reputation, he could be skittish and get out of position easily. Brandon Garrison really struggled to get in the right position to challenge shots. However, if Jayden Quaintance is healthy then UK may have one of the 5 best interior defenders in college basketball. The Sun Devils had the 47th best opponent FG% at the rim when he played, and the 316th best when he sat. I'd expect similar splits for UK this season unless a freshman (Moreno or Jelavic) is able to offer something. Verdict: It depends on how much Quaintance plays, but UK should be at least in the top 200.

Overall, I'd expect UK to be improved in several areas defensively as they do a better job of challenging shots and continue to be elite at clearing the glass. Even a little improvement in forcing turnovers will go a long way to Kentucky being possibly a top-25 overall defense. The big question mark on defense is opponent 3 point shooting. Teams tend to have more control over whether the opponent takes threes rather than whether those threes go in, so I wouldn't be surprised to see opponents hit something closer to 33% from deep as compared to sub-31%.

On offense, Kentucky is bound to drop a bit in their own 3 point shooting as they just don't have much in the way of proven shooters. However, Kentucky had a top-10 offense prior to injuries preventing any semblance of a cohesive backcourt. Improvement on the offensive glass should offset a drop in outside shooting. If Kentucky can be in the top 60 in avoiding turnovers, they should have a top-15 offense in the country and be in the thick of the SEC title race. If they slip to something like 100th, the offense might be more like top-30...still quite good, but a step back from last season.

For the record, Bart Torvik's initial projections for 2025-26 currently have UK with the 25th best offense and 9th(!) best defense, coming in at 14th overall. That's not a bad place to start from in the quest for a 9th title.