The Inside Kentucky Basketball Newsletter: An opportunity for the Cats' D

The Cats return to Rupp Arena for their second exhibition game tonight, and this should provide Mark Pope’s team with a much tougher test. It’ll be Kentucky vs. Texas Tech, which was ranked No. 19 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll this week, at 7 p.m. on SEC Network+.

An intriguing follow for tonight’s game? The UK defense.

That end of the ball isn’t supposed to be the Cats’ strong suit this season, but Kentucky’s D looked pretty good in the exhibition opener against Little Rock last week, holding the Trojans to 19 first half points in a 69-49 victory.

Pope was pleased with the defensive effort (and promised the highly touted offense would come around). It’ll be interesting to see what happens tonight.

Texas Tech won’t be at full strength (All-American-caliber forward JT Toppin is still recovering from ACL surgery), but the Red Raiders’ offense is projected at No. 5 nationally by KenPom, and this squad still boasts Donovan Atwell, who made 130 3-pointers at a 45.8% rate last season, and Darrion Williams, who returned to Lubbock after averaging 14.0 points per game at N.C. State last season (and 15.1 for Texas Tech the year before that).

Those two aren’t alone. This is a talented roster featuring some high-level college basketball veterans. It’ll be a much different opponent than last week’s Little Rock team, which new coach Travis Ford had to build on the fly and consisted of players who had never played together before visiting Rupp Arena. 

Pope wants this UK defense to succeed through disruption, and that means getting deflections. The Cats came up with 32 of those in their exhibition opener. How many can they get tonight against a much better offense?

A Hall of Fame week

I’ll be joining the UK Sports Network pregame radio show again tonight, so tune in for that at 5:30 p.m. on 630 WLAP (and other affiliates) to hear more insight on the Wildcats.

Video of tonight’s show will also be streamed live on SEC Network+ from the Spectrum Studio at Rupp Arena, so you can also watch us there, with our coverage leading right up to tipoff.

One of my fellow co-hosts will be game analyst Jack “Goose” Givens, who was kind enough to share his UK practice observations with Inside Kentucky Basketball earlier this week. Check out that conversation here.

It wasn’t by design, but we started Week 2 of the website with a Hall of Fame cast.

The story with Goose’s thoughts on the Cats kicked things off Monday morning. On Tuesday, former Herald-Leader columnist John Clay — a USBWA Hall of Fame inductee, as well as a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame — penned his first column for the site. (And it’s an honor to have him aboard.)

And then I talked to Naismith Hall of Famer Dan Issel, the program’s all-time leading scorer, about his new book for a story Wednesday, which you can read here.

A couple of other stories on the site this week, in case you missed them: a closer look at Franck Kepnang, who won’t be a starter for this team (in his seventh season of college basketball) but might be one of the most important players on the roster; and Derek Terry caught up with the high school coach of 7-foot-5 center Cherif Millogo, who took a recruiting visit to Lexington this month and was “blown away” by the experience. 

And if you haven’t subscribed to Inside Kentucky Basketball yet, hit the button below to sign up.

Kam Williams update

The official injury update from UK yesterday had both Kam Williams (foot) and Trent Noah (hamstring) in the “week to week” category for a return, with Jerone Morton (knee) out indefinitely. 

Williams certainly appears to be the closest to seeing the floor. In fact, the junior wing was a pretty active participant in yesterday’s practice in Rupp Arena, where he worked in some controlled 2-on-2 drills under the guidance of assistant coaches Cody Fueger and Mo Williams early on. During that stretch of practice, Williams was moving well and showing solid footwork, with some real burst going toward the basket.

Williams, who is coming off a second surgery over the summer for a Jones fracture that was suffered in January, also worked with the UK backups during play walkthroughs yesterday and participated in other controlled drills later in the session. After practice, he did full sprints on the Rupp court, going the length of the floor and back, and stuck around later than anyone to put up shots with team managers. He looks like he's getting close.

Noah and Morton were both present at practice, but neither player participated in the session. Morton was still wearing a restrictive brace on his left leg and is expected to remain sidelined for the next few weeks (at least). There's also no hard timeline on Noah's return.

Other notes

• UK basketball trivia: Dan Issel is Kentucky’s all-time leading scorer with 2,138 points, achieving that record while playing only three varsity seasons. Six other UK players scored more than 1,500 points while playing just three seasons. How many can you name?
• The aforementioned preseason AP Top 25 rankings dropped Monday afternoon, and Kentucky came in at No. 23 in the country. (That happens to be the same spot that Mark Pope’s first UK team was ranked in the 2024-25 preseason.) One interesting note: Kansas, which will be the Cats’ first marquee opponent this season, was No. 17 in the poll, but those votes were tallied before former Purdue star Trey Kaufman-Renn was announced as a new member of the Jayhawks. For now, Kaufman-Renn is eligible to play the 2026-27 season, which would be his sixth in college (but just his fifth on the court, since he sat out Year 1 as a redshirt), after coming out on the winning end of the most recent decision in his court case.
• Kansas Coach Bill Self also got back starting guards Melvin Council Jr. and Tre White in recent weeks, thanks to similar eligibility rulings in the courts, to bolster an already intriguing roster that includes No. 1 high school recruit Tyran Stokes, a longtime Kentucky target. The addition of Kaufman-Renn, who is 24 years old and was picked 59th in the 2026 NBA draft, should make Kansas a much better team than it appeared to be on paper when those AP voters turned in their ballots over the weekend. That’s bad news for Pope, who could really use a victory over the Jayhawks in the Champions Classic in Chicago on Nov. 10 to generate some good vibes going into what is likely to be a pivotal year in his tenure.
• In the category of, “Perhaps We Shouldn’t Overreact to Exhibition Games”: Near-unanimous preseason No. 1 Florida lost its opener last weekend, an 82-76 overtime defeat at the hands of a Baylor team picked to finish 10th in the Big 12 this season. The Gators were 4 for 29 from 3-point range, and ex-Cat Denzel Aberdeen was 0 for 10 from deep in his first game back in a Florida uniform. Yikes. But it’s been worse for Tennessee, which followed up last week’s 16-point home loss to Xavier with a 103-64 thumping at Duke on Tuesday night. Double yikes. The Vols are No. 8 in the preseason Top 25 poll and have had some players battling injuries this fall, but SEC first-teamer Juke Harris and the other four projected starters were all out there for the 39-point loss. Starting guard Terrence Hill Jr. did play only five minutes due to an ankle injury, but that’s still a tough result for a team many are touting as a potential Final Four squad.
• And one more note on that preseason AP Top 25 poll: No team in the country has more games on the regular season schedule against opponents in the early rankings than Kentucky, which will have 11 such matchups going into the season. Three of those will be in nonconference play: No. 17 Kansas (Nov. 10 in Chicago), No. 9 Virginia (Dec. 2 in Charlottesville) and No. 11 Louisville (Dec. 12 in Rupp Arena), with eight more ranked games in league play. UK will also play Missouri (26th in the voting), North Carolina (30th), Indiana (36th), Texas A&M (37th) and Auburn (39th). The other two teams with 11 games against preseason Top 25 opponents are Arizona and Missouri.
• Trivia answer: The six UK players (other than Dan Issel) to score at least 1,500 points despite playing only three varsity seasons are: Jamal Mashburn (1,843), Kevin Grevey (1,801), Cotton Nash (1,770), Louie Dampier (1,575), Patrick Patterson (1,564) and Mike Casey (1,535).
• Thanks to everyone who has signed up for Inside Kentucky Basketball so far. The early support has been amazing, and please forward this newsletter (and any other stories you’ve enjoyed) to friends and family who might be interested. Check out the site tomorrow morning for something related to tonight’s game, and we’ll be kicking off next week with what should be an informative read. I sat down with Milan Momcilovic for a one-on-one interview yesterday, and the star transfer shared some interesting insights on his fit with this Kentucky team. That conversation drops Monday.