The latest on the status of Kam Williams and his return to game action, plus UK recruiting notes and much more before tonight's matchup with James Madison.
The national recruiting analyst talks to Inside Kentucky Basketball about Mark Pope's newest commitment, with some eye-popping comments regarding his talent level.
The Inside Kentucky Basketball Newsletter: Kam Williams is getting close
The latest on the status of Kam Williams and his return to game action, plus UK recruiting notes and much more before tonight's matchup with James Madison.
The Kentucky Wildcats were back in Rupp Arena yesterday afternoon for their final practice before the second game of the regular season.
And Kam Williams was out there with them.
In fact, Williams has been a full participant in UK’s practice sessions for the past week. He jumped into 5-on-5 play last Friday — after several ramp-up days that included strength and conditioning drills, as well as some non-contact play — and there have been no setbacks since.
Williams, who is working his way back from a second surgery to repair a Jones fracture suffered in January, appears to be close to a return to game action. He missed all of the eight-week summer session due to the injury and had been sidelined this fall before slowly working his way back into the mix in recent weeks.
The 6-foot-7 wing was able to do everything his teammates did during yesterday’s session.
He flashed nimble footwork throughout the nearly two-hour practice. He also played with physicality, initiating contact and taking it across the team’s drills. During one portion of practice against the scout team, he drove through traffic to the basket, finishing with a spin move and dunk at the rim.
After playing alongside the backups during walkthroughs, he joined the rest of the team for a fairly intense session of transition drills and then scrimmaged against the starters. Williams played primarily at the 3 spot — with Mason Williams running the point and Braydon Hawthorne at the 2 — while matching up with Milan Momcilovic on both ends during full-court, full-contact 5-on-5 play.
Williams stayed on the court for at least 15 minutes after every other player had wrapped up their post-practice routine, putting up extra shots before heading back to the Rupp locker room.
Tonight’s game against James Madison will be Kentucky’s final tuneup before its first marquee matchup of the season: a date with Kansas in the Champions Classic in Chicago on Tuesday night. UK would surely like to have Williams back for that one, and making his debut tonight would allow him to get a little foundation against outside competition before the Cats face the Jayhawks.
Kam Williams watches one of UK's exhibition games from the bench. Photo credit: James Crisp/Inside Kentucky Basketball
Mark Pope has not set a specific timetable for Williams’ return to actual games, however, reiterating in recent days that UK would be “cautious” with the returning junior. Following the Kansas game next week, the Wildcats will play Northern Arizona on Nov. 13 and Grambling State on Nov. 16, ahead of their next major matchup: Indiana on Nov. 20 in Indianapolis.
Barring a setback, Williams is certain to make his season debut soon, and his ability as a 3-point threat and versatile defender should provide a major boost to the Wildcats’ depth.
Williams appears in good enough shape to make that return tonight, though it was notable that he still wasn’t wearing an official UK practice jersey yesterday.
Before a player is given his practice jersey, he must complete the team’s “17s” conditioning drill in a set amount of time. Some of the Wildcats talked early in the preseason about how grueling that test had been, and the fact that Williams still doesn’t have his jersey is a sign that he has not yet completed the task, understandable for a player coming back from foot surgery.
Williams’ status for tonight’s game should become more clear by this afternoon. On Tuesday, a few hours before the Cats’ opener against Manhattan, he did not participate in the team’s shootaround, watching the entire session from the side, despite practicing in full the previous day. That was obviously a sign that he wouldn’t be playing in that night’s game.
Tune in for the Countdown to Tipoff pregame show at 5:30 p.m. for the latest on Williams’ status. Tonight’s show will not be streamed live on ESPN+ but will be available across the UK Sports Network streaming platforms on social media, as well as over the air on all of the network’s radio affiliates (630 WLAP in Lexington).
Countdown to Tipoff will return to ESPN+ for the Kansas game next week.
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Tonight’s matchup with James Madison (7 p.m. on SEC Network) should provide the Cats with a much tougher test than they faced in the 85-57 victory over Manhattan to start the season Tuesday night.
The Dukes are currently projected as the top team in the Sun Belt Conference, according to the KenPom ratings, after coming off an 86-77 loss to Miami (Ohio) in their opener this week. (Miami went 31-0 in the regular season in 2025-26 and is expected to compete for the MAC title this season.)
James Madison is coached by Preston Spradlin, who is entering his third season with the Dukes after coaching Morehead State for eight years, with two NCAA Tournament appearances there. Spradlin, a Kentucky native, was on John Calipari’s staff at UK early in his career and was the program’s assistant director of basketball operations when the Cats won the 2012 national title.
“Preston Spradlin is one of the great human beings in the coaching profession,” UK coach Mark Pope said this week. “He's a heck of a coach, man. He's a big-time coach. He's a better person. We've had a chance over the last few years to have some really, really long basketball-based and spiritually-based conversations. I really admire him. I’m excited he's coming to the gym. He's a Kentucky guy, and he's a terrific coach. And it's going to be a great game.”
UK forward Justin McBride played for Spradlin last season at James Madison, averaging 15.3 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. McBride had three points and two rebounds in 16 minutes off the bench in his Kentucky debut Tuesday night.
It’s been a big week for UK on the recruiting front, with the commitment of 7-5 center Cherif Millogo on Wednesday morning. Check out the commitment story here, and premium subscribers will want to read our Q&A with 247Sports national analyst Travis Branham, who is not prone to hyperbole and said Millogo might be the most naturally talented player in the entire 2027 class.
I was told yesterday that Millogo’s deal to come to UK could be worth up to $3 million for next season, which might end up as a major value if his development continues, especially compared to other price tags that have been reported in this 2027 recruiting cycle.
In other news, Kentucky cancelled its official visit with AJ Williams yesterday and instead plans to focus all of its recruiting energy over the next couple of weeks on CJ Rosser, the No. 2 overall player in the 247Sports rankings. The early signing period for high school seniors ends Nov. 18, and UK is hoping to land a commitment from Rosser between now and then.
Rosser’s recruitment will be a hard-fought one, with North Carolina and Arkansas among the many suitors still pursuing him, but Inside Kentucky Basketball has been told by multiple sources this week that UK remains a real contender to land his commitment.
Check out the story below for more details on Kentucky’s latest 2027 moves.
UK basketball trivia: Kentucky will play Kansas in the Champions Classic in Chicago on Tuesday night. Twelve former UK basketball players have listed Chicago as their hometown, but only one of those players scored 1,000 points for the Wildcats. Who is he?
Kentucky managed 20 assists in its first game of the season Tuesday night, with Alex Wilkins and Mason Williams dishing out five apiece and three other Wildcats tallying multiple assists. The Wildcats now have a 19-3 record when managing 20 or more assists in games under Mark Pope, and the latest example of it came despite UK not getting any assists in the final five minutes of the game (an 85-57 win over Manhattan). Pope’s UK teams are also 11-0 in games with more than 22 assists. That happened seven times in his first season, including victories over Louisville and eventual national champion Florida. It happened only four times last season, with all of those games coming against lower-tier competition in the nonconference schedule.
Kentucky also attempted 31 3-pointers Tuesday night, just the 12th time in 73 games under Pope that the Cats have put up 30 3s (the number the coach has long said he wants his teams to average over the course of a season). UK was 12 for 31 from deep against Manhattan, good enough for 38.7%. The Cats hit that number despite missing all five of their 3-point attempts in the final five minutes of the blowout victory. Pope’s first team was 5-0 when attempting 30-plus 3s. Last season’s bunch had a 2-4 record in such games, including putting up lots of perimeter shots while playing catch-up in lopsided losses to Gonzaga, Louisville and Michigan State.
Alex Wilkins’ line in his UK debut: 11 points, five assists and seven steals, with a team-best plus-35 rating. Count Manhattan coach John Gallagher among those impressed by the performance. Gallagher noted that his team played against Wilkins last season, when the new Wildcat was a freshman at Furman. Wilkins’ team won that game 75-68, and he had 17 points and seven assists but also turned it over five times. Wilkins committed only two turnovers Tuesday night, and Gallagher pointed that out as a one example of his growth, first under Furman coach Bob Richey and now under Pope, who has been working with Wilkins to cut down his turnovers while also applying more of himself on the defensive end.
Gallagher's thoughts on Wilkins this season, compared to last: “He's way more mature. I think Bob Richey did a great job with him. I think, at the end of the day, he really understands angles, and his length bothers people. He's a 6-6 point guard. He's going to be a handful. And he really understands when to go, when not to go. And I think he could be a real defensive menace in the SEC.” Wilkins has also praised Richey and the patience his former coach showed with him last season, especially while allowing him to play through mistakes early in his freshman year. Wilkins was tied for fourth nationally with 3.8 turnovers per game at Furman.
If you’re looking to watch more hoops this weekend following Kentucky’s game against James Madison tonight, there’s a big one on the schedule. John Calipari’s No. 12-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks will play the No. 9 Virginia Cavaliers in Washington, D.C. at 1 p.m. Sunday on ESPN. You can get an early look at Calipari’s latest star freshman, Jordan Smith Jr., who was the top-ranked guard in the 2026 recruiting class, as well as a sneak peek at two of the biggest opponents on UK’s 2026-27 schedule. Kentucky will play at Virginia as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge on Dec. 2. The Cats will host Arkansas on Feb. 20 in Rupp Arena, the lone meeting between the two teams this season and Calipari’s second game back in the building since stepping down as UK’s head coach in 2024. Calipari won the first meeting, 89-79, in an upset two seasons ago.
Trivia answer: Antonio Reeves scored 1,155 points in two seasons at Kentucky, making him the program’s only 1,000-point scorer from Chicago, which was also the listed hometown of Nazr Mohammed, Antoine Walker and 2012 national player of the year Anthony Davis.
Thank you, once again, to everyone who has signed up for this newsletter, and a special thanks to the many who have already purchased premium subscriptions to Inside Kentucky Basketball. Your support is greatly appreciated, and we have a lot of fun stuff in the works for next week, including the trip to Chicago for that highly anticipated UK-Kansas game. Stay tuned!
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Ben Roberts launched Inside Kentucky Basketball in 2026 to bring a source of independent and objective coverage of the Cats to UK fans. He spent 20 years at the Lexington Herald-Leader, including four seasons as UK men's basketball beat writer.
What sources are saying about UK's approach to recruiting for the 2027-28 season amid a busy week of headlines and $5 million price tags on big-time recruitments.
Welcome to the first edition of our free Friday newsletter, which is packed with news and notes on the Wildcats ahead of tonight's exhibition opener against Little Rock.
Ben Roberts
Ben Roberts
