Kentucky’s own Malachi Moreno honored to represent college hoops’ ‘premier’ program

Five-star freshman Malachi Moreno hasn’t played a game at Kentucky yet, but he already knows what it’s like to win in Rupp Arena.

Moreno dominated the Kentucky high school basketball landscape at Great Crossing High School. As a senior, he averaged 21.8 points and 14.9 rebounds and earned the 2025 Kentucky Mr. Basketball award.

He kicked off his senior year with a commitment to Mark Pope and UK in August after capping his high school career with a 24-point, 15-rebound performance in the state championship game against Bowling Green, earning the tournament’s MVP honor in front of 12,222 people packed into his future home.

He said the state title was “good to have,” but now, it’s in the past.

“Right now, I’m really just focused on winning banner No. 9,” Moreno said at a UK basketball media availability on July 24.

And Moreno, perhaps more than most newcomers on UK’s roster, understands the assignment.

Growing up in nearby Georgetown, Moreno has cheered for the Wildcats his whole life. He said Brandon Knight’s game-winner against Ohio State in the 2011 Sweet 16, the run of clutch Aaron Harrison 3s in the 2014 NCAA Tournament and “any game John Wall played in” are some of his favorite times as a Wildcat fan.

He used to identify with Anthony Davis, not because he saw five-star center potential in himself from a young age, but because he grew up with a unibrow.

He said it’s been “very honoring” to join the list of guys from the Bluegrass to play for UK.

“My parents, they really instilled (in) me, you should always love where you’re from,” Moreno said. “Being able to play for Kentucky while being from Kentucky, it’s a great honor to have.”

Moreno, who’s one of four players on the 2025-26 roster from Kentucky, has been teaching that homegrown pride to the non-Kentuckian newcomers.

“I just try to emphasize, we’re from the state of Kentucky, and there’s a big standard here. It’s the premier of college basketball,” he said. “There’s always going to be somebody who wants to come and beat us. There’s always going to be a target on our backs.”

While he’s got the program’s standard down, Moreno’s been learning a lot, too.

He didn’t face many players in high school who matched up to his 6-11, 230-pound frame.

“Coming to college, there’s 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds now that are my size, but a little more mature in their bodies,” Moreno said. “It’s kind of something I’ve had to get used to.”

Before the season starts, he’s already getting used to the physicality with his teammates. Moreno is the second-tallest player on the roster, only looking up to 7-1 Reece Potter, a fellow Kentuckian and Lexington native, but he’s still duking it out with his teammates. He said he’s been “beating” with guys in practice, helping him get a better sense of life in the Southeastern Conference.

“(The) SEC, it’s a very physical league, and, they’re helping me, they’re pushing me to be better,” he said.

Moreno said matching up against someone as big as him in practice has taught him he has to be a lot more physical against stronger players. He compared his situation to Kevin Durant or Rudy Gobert, successful NBA players who use their length to their advantage when facing stronger opponents.

Along with adjusting to college physicality, Moreno said he’s working on his shooting. In high school, he made 24% from 3-point range on just 33 attempts over three varsity seasons. His shooting struggles carried over to the free-throw line, where he shot 64%.

He said he has been “fixing a couple of things” with his jump shot, hoping to get more consistent with scoring outside of the paint.

“It’s (his jump shot) definitely in the developmental process,” Moreno said.

Junior forward Brandon Garrison, who spent last year learning from now-Boston Celtics big man Amari Williams, has taken Moreno under his wing. Moreno said Garrison has helped him understand terminology in Pope’s offense, and pushed him to improve “every single day.”

“He’s been a good teacher and a great teammate … I feel like with the way we play, he’s going to help me be very successful,” Moreno said about Garrison’s guidance.

“Right now, we’re in a teaching period,” Moreno continued. “So just having that, like, mentorship as a freshman, it’s helped me out a lot.”

Who else is helping Moreno get used being a big man in the SEC? Coach Pope, who was a center on UK’s 1996 national championship team and spent 1997-2005 as an NBA big. Moreno said Pope has used his experience in teaching skill groups with the other bigs on the team.

“I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better, just with my back-to-the-basket play,” Moreno said. “Also being able to use my physicality to my advantage, I think he’s (Pope) been very beneficial with that.”

Moreno and fellow Kentucky native and freshman Jasper Johnson have the upper hand against other newcomers to UK when it comes to Pope. They already received on-court instruction from Pope at the FIBA U19 World Cup.

Moreno, unlike Johnson, only participated in training camp with the team, suffering a minor hip strain that sent him back to Lexington, but he said his first impression of Pope is that he’s “going to be such an easy coach to play for.”

“He’s a big teacher, and I’m here to be a sponge and just listen and kind of take what he says and hopefully apply it to my game,” Moreno said.

Pope also thinks highly of Moreno.

“This Malachi Moreno is gonna be fun … He’s so young and he’s so capable,” Pope said at a July 21 press conference.

Pope said there will be moments where it looks like Moreno should be in the NBA, and also moments where he doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. Moreno agreed, saying that Pope’s statement shows a “sense of growth.”

“There’s going to be days where I have really good (days), and there’s also going to be really bad days,” Moreno said.

While he personally is focusing on physicality and shooting, Moreno said the thing that’s impressed him the most about early practice is how well the team has gelled.

“In the short amount of time we’ve been together, I think we’ve gotten a lot better,” Moreno said. “I really think we have 12, 13, 15 guys that can start every game, to be honest. We all have skills that we’re really good at.”

As a local kid, he said something he is looking forward to is putting on a UK jersey for the first time.

“It’s really going to hit me when I see Kentucky No. 24 with Moreno on the back,” Moreno said. “I think that’s going to be a real sentimental moment for me.”