The Inside Kentucky Basketball Newsletter: Let the games begin

Welcome to the first edition of the Inside Kentucky Basketball newsletter!

This is a feature that is sure to evolve over time, but before we get into the news and notes around the team heading into tonight’s preseason opener I’d just like to say … Thank you.

The amount of support over the past week for the new website has been overwhelming, and I hope you’re all enjoying what we’ve had to offer so far. Please keep spreading the word about Inside Kentucky Basketball to friends and family who might be interested in going deeper into the program, and I promise we have a lot of fun, informative stuff in store as the regular season approaches.

The Friday newsletter will remain a free feature to all who sign up for our emails. 

It’ll include an overview of our weekly coverage plus a lookahead to what’s next for the team, as well as various news, notes and insider tidbits related to the program. Signing up for a free account will help us grow the readership base, so thank you, and please forward this to anyone you know who might be interested.

We greatly appreciate the first wave of premium subscribers to the site. You’re going to keep this operation going and allow us to deliver a unique product in this Kentucky basketball media landscape.

Derek Terry already has some recruiting coverage up (here’s a one on one with UK commitment Ryan Hampton) and John Clay (first column coming soon!) will join us to provide his Hall of Fame-level commentary on the Cats.

This week has been unbelievable, and we can’t wait for what’s next. Thanks for subscribing!

Help us get started. Support local, independent coverage of the Cats with a subscription to Inside Kentucky Basketball.

Subscribe to Inside Kentucky Basketball

The preseason begins

The Wildcats return to Rupp Arena tonight for their exhibition opener against coach Travis Ford and the Little Rock Trojans, a team that should compete for the inaugural United Athletic Conference crown this season.

Ford, a former UK standout, is back on the sidelines after sitting out the past two seasons. The 56-year-old began his head coaching career at Campbellsville in 1997 and has seven NCAA Tournament appearances since, with previous stops at Eastern Kentucky, UMass, Oklahoma State and Saint Louis, where he was in charge from 2016 through 2024.

Tonight's game will be shown live at 7 p.m. on ESPN+, and I’ll be jumping on the official pregame radio show on 630 WLAP (and other affiliates) at 5:30 p.m. Tune in!

To get you prepped for exhibition season, we have a three-part position preview series up on the website, taking a closer look at Kentucky’s guards in Part 1, the Wildcats’ wings in Part 2 and the UK bigs in Part 3.

Who will start for the Cats?

Mark Pope has been known to throw some screwballs with his starting lineups in the past — Trent Noah in the initial first five was a surprise last season — so we’ll see what he comes up with for tonight’s exhibition opener.

The conventional wisdom this preseason has pointed to Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins at the guard spots, Milan Momcilovic on the wing and Malachi Moreno at center. Those four spots seem to be written in stone, with neither Ousmane N’Diaye nor Justin McBride running away with the job at the 4 this summer and fall.

I had a one-on-one interview with Wilkins a few days ago, and he might have let the cat out of the bag. The sophomore guard was talking about UK’s potentially potent offense when he listed Diallo, himself, Momcilovic, N’Diaye and Moreno, finishing the thought with: “That's the five.” Wilkins then mentioned McBride, Mason Williams and Braydon Hawthorne as other difference-makers on the offensive end, but it’s clear who he thinks the main five will be. UK’s official game notes also listed N’Diaye among the “projected” starters yesterday.

We’ll see if Pope sticks to that script tonight.

Who I’m watching tonight

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’m most interested to see how Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins play together in the backcourt. They were both high-usage, on-ball-heavy guards last season, and this will be an adjustment. A lot of the national folks I’ve talked to believe that Kentucky’s overall team prospects this season will rely heavily on how effective those two can be.

I’m eager to see what that dynamic looks like. 

But tonight, Ousmane N’Diaye and Braydon Hawthorne will be 1 and 1A on the watch list. These are, in my opinion, the two most intriguing individual players on the team and perhaps the biggest wild cards on the roster. Not coincidentally, Inside Kentucky Basketball had feature stories on both players this week, with UK teammates talking about what they’ve seen from N’Diaye, and Hawthorne going one on one to talk about his long wait to get back on the court. Check ’em out!

UK basketball injury report

(Updated at 8:45 a.m. Friday): I'm told that Trent Noah returned to the court earlier this week after missing the end of the summer session and the start of fall practice with a lingering hamstring injury, but the junior forward has now suffered another setback and was sidelined again in recent days. It’s obviously going to take a while for Noah to round back into shape, but practice observers have said to expect a more confident (and perhaps a quicker, slightly more athletic) version of the Harlan native this season, when he does get back on the court for good. Much of Noah’s confidence in the past has come from his 3-point shot, but he’s been doing other things well and that has led to a growing comfort on the court.

Kam Williams is still coming back from his offseason foot surgery (the second procedure to repair a Jones fracture suffered in January), and it sounds like a return to 100% health by the regular season opener against Manhattan on Nov. 3 is ambitious. The first big game on the schedule is Kansas one week later. We’ll see if he’s fully ready to go by then.

The outlook is not as rosy for senior guard Jerone Morton, who suffered a knee injury a few weeks ago and has been wearing a restrictive brace for stability. There’s clearly some concern around the program regarding his status for this season, and I’m not expecting to see him out on the court anytime soon. If he can make it back to full health this season, Morton should be a meaningful and versatile backcourt contributor off the bench, especially as a defensive player.

Other notes … 

• UK basketball trivia: Little Rock coach Travis Ford is one of only two Wildcats to hit at better than 40% from 3-point range for his career while also attempting more than 350 long-range shots. Who is the only other UK player to achieve that?
• The Associated Press Top 25 preseason rankings are due to drop in the next few days, and I’d expect Kentucky to come in around the 20ish range there. We did get the SEC predicted order of finish earlier this week, with the national and league media members who voted picking the Cats to finish seventh in the conference. Here’s the story on that. UK’s placement in the league poll has caused some consternation, but the biggest takeaway there should probably be the reminder that this is once again the toughest league in college basketball. And these teams still have to play 18 league games before a champion is crowned. Florida is the clear No. 1 in October. You could make a case for a number of teams in the No. 2 spot, and Kentucky could obviously finish much higher than seventh in the actual standings.
• That said, I voted in the poll, and I had the Cats at No. 6 on my list, behind Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama and Arkansas. Those were the official top five (in a slightly different order) with Vanderbilt finishing sixth in the voting. I had UK at No. 6 and Vandy at No. 7. I also voted Florida’s Thomas Haugh as SEC Player of the Year (the official choice), with teammate Rueben Chinyelu, Vandy’s Tyler Tanner, Arkansas freshman Jordan Smith Jr. and UK’s Milan Momcilovic rounding out my first team. The official first team featured Haugh, Chinyelu and Tanner alongside Tennessee transfer Juke Harris and Mississippi State guard Josh Hubbard (yes, he’s still there). Momcilovic was a second-team selection. And Malachi Moreno was a third-team pick, which is also where I had him.
• UK officially announced the hire of Alfred Aboya to fill the fifth assistant spot this week, and I thought Mark Pope’s comments related to him were the most interesting part of his SEC Media Days press conference. Aboya had been the head coach at NBA Academy Africa and also leads the Cameroon national team (his home country). He also has extensive ties to several African prospects, including 7-4 center Cherif Millogo, a 2027 prospect who visited Lexington last weekend, and 7-footer Yann Kamagate, who’s currently ranked No. 1 nationally in the 2028 class. Pope said at SEC Media Days that he intends to recruit more in Africa moving forward and noted that Aboya would help those efforts. Kamagate has been the subject of 2027 reclassification buzz, and there’s already speculation that UK could go after him and Millogo to help shape the 2027-28 frontcourt. That’ll be an interesting recruiting narrative to follow.
• Some of Pope’s comments this week regarding Aboya and recruiting more in Africa: “He's going to have a huge impact there. I’ve spent probably more time as a head coach than any head coach in America in Africa. Several visits to Mali, Madagascar, Tanzania, Egypt. I actually love that country. It's an immense amount of talent and great people throughout Africa. And the basketball is growing there so fast. It's an exciting space for the basketball community worldwide to continue to explore.” This is a good time to mention that Inside Kentucky Basketball has a page dedicated to daily recruiting updates. No fluff. Just the biggest news related to UK’s efforts and major developments around the country. Check it out here.
• For those who might have missed it, some terrible news from the NBA preseason: Otega Oweh suffered a ruptured right Achilles tendon in a game earlier this week. The Oklahoma City Thunder announced that he had successful surgery Wednesday and confirmed that he will, of course, miss the entire 2026-27 season as a result of the injury. Oweh was selected with the No. 41 pick in this year’s NBA draft after leading Kentucky in scoring in each of the past two seasons. It’s a devastating turn of events for Oweh, and we’ll keep you updated on his recovery.
• Trivia answer: Travis Ford shot 44.5% on 427 career 3-point attempts at Kentucky. The only other Wildcat to shoot better than 40% on more than 350 attempts is Antonio Reeves, who hit on 42.2% of his 389 long-range shots.
• Thanks, again, to everyone who signed up for Inside Kentucky Basketball this week. We appreciate the support, and we’re already looking forward to Week 2 of the new website. Please forward this newsletter to any Kentucky fans you think will be interested. Check the site tomorrow morning for a story out of tonight’s exhibition opener, and be sure to come back Monday for my conversation with Jack "Goose" Givens, who has been a fixture in the UK practice gym and had all sorts of interesting insights on this season’s team.

Help us get started. Support local, independent coverage of the Cats with a subscription to Inside Kentucky Basketball.

Subscribe to Inside Kentucky Basketball