In season opener, Kentucky showed the building blocks of ‘beautiful basketball’

With about 7 minutes and 20 seconds left in the first half of Kentucky’s season opener Tuesday night, Milan Momcilovic pump-faked a Manhattan defender off his feet and buried his first 3-pointer as a Wildcat.

It was a sight that UK basketball fans had been waiting to see for months.

But the sequence that led to the shot? And what that sequence might mean for the immediate future? This was something the Rupp Arena crowd had been waiting to see for well over a year.

Before the ball found its way into Momcilovic’s capable hands, it worked its way all over the court. 

It all began with Malachi Moreno out on the wing, Kentucky’s starting 5 using his 7-foot, 250-pound frame as a shield while teammates cut back and forth around him, waiting for just the right moment to let it go. 

Moreno finally found that moment, tossing the ball to Alex Wilkins, who was in the process of his third hard cut of the possession, this one giving him just enough space to catch the ball in stride, drive toward the basket and — as the defense collapsed toward him — hit Zoom Diallo in the corner with a screamer of a one-handed pass.

It could have ended there. Diallo could have gotten off an open shot. He didn’t even try. Instead, UK’s PG1 had the ball for just a split second, his touch pass landing right where Momcilovic wanted.

The best 3-point shooter in college basketball wasn’t exactly wide open by the time he started his shooting motion. Two defenders were closing in quickly. But these are the situations that make him the best 3-point shooter in college basketball, and Diallo, Wilkins and everyone else wearing white were well aware of that fact.

Get the defense scrambling. Get the ball to Momcilovic. Let him do the rest. It’s a formula that should keep this Kentucky offense humming all season long. It worked wonders on this possession.

Momcilovic’s pump-fake pulled one Manhattan defender off his feet while the other moved to cover Braydon Hawthorne, who would have been left wide open at the top of the key had both players committed to guarding the ball.

As the first Manhattan defender flew by Momcilovic, the Wildcat coolly side-stepped to his left to buy even more space, calmly rose up with the ball, and drained it. The whole thing — from Moreno’s toss to Momcilovic’s release — lasted about three seconds.

“It was actually beautiful basketball,” Mark Pope said after the Cats’ 85-57 victory.