It’ll be a bittersweet Senior Night for Kentucky basketball. ‘I love this place, honestly’
A question posed to Kentucky’s Mark Pope regarding the benefit of college basketball players playing for the same coach for multiple seasons — specifically, national player of the year candidate Johni Broome playing under Auburn’s Bruce Pearl for the past three years — led to a reply about the rarity of such situations these days.
“I think the beautiful part of longevity, which we don’t have in college athletics very much anymore, is you just get to know each other so well,” Pope said. “And you start to get to build things around it. For example, if I was starting with this team today — with a whole season ahead of us — one, they already have this foundational knowledge of how we approach the game. But two, I actually know situations. I’m learning, every day, fun situations that we can put our guys in where, let’s say, ‘Hey, this player just has a unique knack to kind of make this play more often than not.’
“And so clearly, they know each other really, really well, and the more of a foundation you have, the more creative you get to be, the more comfortable you get to be, the more you get to explore the game. Which is what makes it really exhilarating.”
The group of veteran Kentucky players that were to play on the Rupp Arena court for the final time Tuesday night didn’t get to be part of such a scenario. Every one of those Wildcats was set to play his final home game in Rupp just four months after playing his first. All are new to UK basketball. None were coached by Pope before this season.
But, even so, this group managed to exhilarate along the way. And, to a man, it’s a journey that — whether it ends a couple of weeks from now or in early April — hasn’t lasted nearly long enough.
Some have brought up the subject on their own. Others have quickly agreed to the premise when it’s been asked of them.
This Kentucky basketball season has flown by.
From the whirlwind of Pope’s arrival as UK’s new head coach last April to the flurry of commitments that followed to the summer practices to the season itself, the players honored for Senior Night on Tuesday — before the Cats’ final home game against LSU — signed up to be part of something special, and they took Kentucky fans on quite a ride.
There have been memorable wins, some of them — Louisville, Florida and Tennessee, to name a few — happening in Rupp Arena, and there have been plenty of low points, too, on and off the court.
The Senior Night festivities bring reminders of those setbacks.
Jaxson Robinson, perhaps the most celebrated addition out of the transfer portal last year, was to be honored, but he won’t get to play one more game alongside his teammates. Pope announced Saturday that Robinson will miss the rest of the season with a wrist injury, bringing a premature end to his college basketball career.
Kerr Kriisa, a fan favorite waiting to happen, never got a chance to show those fans everything he could do and was not to be a part of Tuesday’s ceremony at all. He hasn’t played since Dec. 7 due to a foot injury, and Pope revealed Monday night that Kriisa wouldn’t participate in Senior Night as he mulls a possible medical redshirt season, which could bring him back to college for one more year.
For five other Wildcats, this is it. They signed on with Pope nearly a year ago knowing they would be entering their last year of college and entrusting that final season with Kentucky’s new head coach.
If there are any regrets among that group, it’s that they didn’t get a chance to do it sooner.
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Kentucky basketball Senior Night
How quickly did this season go by for the Wildcats themselves?
“Extremely fast, unfortunately,” Koby Brea said. “I wish it could last a lot longer. But it’s been everything that I wanted it to be since I’ve been here. Just being embraced by the fans and all the people that I meet on a day-to-day basis. And being able to have my family come out here, it’s been amazing. So it’ll be emotional, for sure.
“I love this place, honestly. I really do. It’s been awesome to me. And we just gotta get this win. That’s the most important thing.”
Kentucky headed into the game Tuesday with a 19-10 record and an 8-8 mark in the SEC, with a victory over LSU ensuring at least a .500 finish in arguably the best conference in the history of the sport. The Cats are ranked No. 19 nationally for the final week of the regular season, but this group — riddled with injuries for the past three months — spent 10 consecutive weeks in the AP top 10, the program’s longest such run since the 2016-17 season.
They arrived together on campus back in June — all 12 scholarship players were new to the program, and only Robinson had played for Pope — but bonded quickly.
Amari Williams, the Cats’ starting center, pointed to a team retreat in August as a highlight. On that trip, Kentucky’s players — still getting to know each other — helped build houses in the Hazard area. Then they spent some free time out on the lake.
Williams, a native of England, got on a jet ski for the first time. He smiled at the memory of that trip and others, reflecting on traveling around the country with his new teammates.
“I feel like that’s something that’s undervalued in college,” he said. “But there’s been a lot of things to enjoy, a lot of things that we’re all gonna remember for the rest of our lives. So it’s meant a lot being here.”
How fast did it go by for Andrew Carr? “Super fast,” he said.
“Of course, it goes by way faster than you would ever expect, especially SEC play. Once you get in conference play, everything just meshes together. And you kind of try and lose yourself a little bit. So I’ve just been trying to do the best I can to be able to be as present as possible, not take anything for granted. And every practice and every game, do everything I can.”
Lamont Butler, the “heart and soul” of this team according to Pope and his teammates, had to watch some of the season from the sidelines as he battled injuries. But if Brea’s 3-point barrage to beat Florida wasn’t the most memorable individual effort on the Rupp court season, then it was surely Butler’s perfect shooting night in the rivalry game against Louisville.
That performance by UK’s point guard will be remembered for years to come.
“Yeah, man, it feels like it went by quick,” Butler said of the season. “But it’s just a blessing to be here and be able to experience Rupp Arena. It’s been great all year. I mean, the experience I’ve had, the games that we’ve played, the fans were great every game. So I’m definitely excited to have Senior Night on Tuesday, and I’m just glad to be here, honestly.”
Ansley Almonor sat on campus Monday and described the LSU matchup, at that exact moment in time, as “another game,” though he knew the feeling wasn’t likely to last.
“Probably, when I get there, I’m going to realize, like ‘Dang, there’s no more. This is the last game in here.’ Obviously, you get a little emotional,” he said. “I’m so grateful and thankful for the opportunity for being able to play here — to play for this prestigious program. And I can’t wait to go out there one more time. …
“It’s been like a blur. From June, when we got here, and it feels like it’s just been like that,” Almonor continued, snapping his fingers. “It’s crazy that we’re already in March now, and it’s what we’ve been working for the whole time. It’s just … it’s been a great experience.”
A few days earlier, Otega Oweh sat in the same room and marveled at the passage of time.
“It’s crazy. I was talking about that this morning with my mom,” said Oweh, a UK junior who could return for one more season. “I mean, it’s true what they say, like, time flies when you’re having fun. And this year has been so much fun, just in terms of where we’ve gone, the games we’ve won, the games we played in.
“So, it’s crazy that it’s already the end of the season, and we’re talking about the conference tournament. But, I mean, I feel like everything is gonna work out great for us. So it’s only gonna get better. And more fun.”
Time will tell how much fun is left for this particular group of Wildcats. And time is in short supply at the moment. “It’s just not long enough,” Pope said of the season, in general, he’s spent with the players who signed on to be part of his first Kentucky team.
Whatever happens the rest of this week, next week in Nashville and the NCAA Tournament after that, this group will be remembered as the one that helped get a new era of Kentucky basketball moving in the right direction.
But no matter what, the end is near. And that’s a reality that packs an emotional punch.
“The season’s gone by really, really fast. And I love these guys, man,” Pope said. “It’s hard to express, in words, what it’s like to be able to coach guys that are willing to be so incredibly invested in the program and the jersey and the state. And that it means as much to them as it does to me. And that are willing to love each other as much as these guys have.
“It’s an incredibly special group of seniors.”
