‘Big Z’ takes the stage at Big Blue Madness. His Kentucky basketball debut is coming soon.
A little more than 24 hours after landing in Lexington for the first time, the final addition to this season’s Kentucky basketball team was introduced to the madness.
Zvonimir Ivisic — the 7-foot-2 center of attention of the UK basketball world for the past two months — made his Rupp Arena debut Friday night at Big Blue Madness, sporting blue and white head to toe and wearing a wide smile as he hit the stage set up at one end of the court.
“Big Z” — as John Calipari dubbed Ivisic shortly after his summer commitment — waved to the crowd, walked across the stage, headed down the stairs to court level and made his way to the floor. He took off his warm-ups to reveal a No. 44 practice jersey underneath and took a seat on the UK bench.
The Rupp crowd, obviously, let out a roar of approval when his name was announced.
“Zeeeee!” the fans chanted as he strode across the stage.
They’d been waiting awhile to see this.
Ivisic committed to Kentucky on Aug. 1 but didn’t arrive in Lexington until Thursday following an unexpectedly drawn-out admissions process with the university. As a result of the delay, Ivisic, who was originally expected to arrive in late August, has missed nearly three weeks of preseason practices, along with a month of prep time that preceded those sessions.
UK confirmed to the Herald-Leader on Oct. 4 that Ivisic had been fully admitted as a student.
Fall classes at UK began Aug. 21, and the final day to add courses for this semester was Aug. 25, according to the school’s official academic calendar. However, a university spokesperson outlined to the Herald-Leader last month an alternative path that would allow Ivisic to enroll in “part of term” classes and still be academically eligible to play during the first part of the 2023-24 season. He arrived on campus within the time frame to make that path possible.
But there could still be hurdles for Ivisic to clear before he’s able to compete in regular-season games. Due to his status as a professional player in Europe, he will need to provide documentation to the NCAA regarding if and how he was compensated for that time as a pro. Even in the era of name, image and likeness reforms, college players must still be regarded as “amateur” athletes to compete at the NCAA level. Current rules prohibit such players from receiving anything beyond “actual and necessary” benefits — such as travel expenses, meals, lodging, apparel, etc. — from professional teams.
As of Friday afternoon, neither representatives of UK nor the NCAA could confirm to the Herald-Leader that Ivisic had been cleared to play for the Cats this season, though there are still a few weeks to get that process completed.
Kentucky’s season opener is Nov. 6 against New Mexico State in Rupp Arena.
If he has any concerns about Ivisic’s eligibility status, Calipari isn’t expressing them publicly. Along with social media posts from UK basketball accounts Thursday chronicling Ivisic’s arrival at the team’s practice facility, the Kentucky coach had a couple of tweets on the subject.
In the first one, Calipari stood next to Ivisic in his office at the Joe Craft Center, grinning ear to ear and looking about two feet shorter than the new recruit. “Big Z and Lil Cal! Finally!!!” read the tweet.
On Friday morning, Calipari posted a photo of Ivisic next to his wife, Ellen, presumably from the night before in the Craft Center parking lot. “Who shrunk my wife?” read Calipari’s tweet.
Earlier in the week, Calipari led ESPN on a tour of the UK basketball facilities as part of the network’s coverage of the Kentucky “Pro Day” event for NBA scouts. On that tour, he showed off Ivisic’s locker in Rupp Arena and noted that he’d been waiting months for it to be filled. During the Pro Day broadcast itself, Calipari was asked by ESPN’s Seth Greenberg what keeps him up at night regarding his young but talented roster.
“That we’re not gonna have that big,” Calipari said. “That keeps me up.”
UK’s coach has said multiple times this week that injured big men Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso are still 5-6 weeks away from returning to the court, though Calipari hasn’t elaborated as to whether that means getting back to full practice or being able to play in actual games. He’s also added that it could be “seven weeks” before they’re back to the end of some of those comments. Both Bradshaw and Onyenso suffered foot injuries over the offseason, and Calipari’s lack of clarity on their timetables — especially at this stage in their recoveries — implies neither player has a set-in-stone return date.
Bradshaw and Onyenso were both at Madness and moving well, though they stood off to the side during a brief shootaround and didn’t participate in any basketball activities. Ivisic, though dressed in a full practice uniform, did the same, watching the scrimmage from the bench.
After the basketball was finished, Calipari grabbed the microphone and told the fans to buy tickets to the Blue-White Game in Truist Arena at Northern Kentucky University next weekend if they wanted to be among the first to see Ivisic play in a Kentucky uniform. The annual scrimmage is set for Oct. 21, and Calipari said about 1,000 tickets were left.
As part of the ESPN tour of the UK facilities, Calipari casually said that Ivisic would “start” while Bradshaw and Onyenso are out. He’s also made recent comments projecting that transfer forward Tre Mitchell could be the team’s starting “5” at the beginning of the season. Mitchell played that position for much of Kentucky’s exhibition trip to Canada over the summer.
The Cats’ first big game on the 2023-24 schedule is Nov. 14 against Kansas, which is expected to be ranked No. 1 when the preseason AP Top 25 poll is released next week.
That game is less than five weeks away.
This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 9:06 PM.
