Kentucky basketball officially adds more players to its 2025-26 roster
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- UK basketball roster for the 2025-26 season now includes six returning players.
- Former walk-ons Walker Horn and Zach Tow are back with Kentucky.
Mark Pope’s second Kentucky basketball team will now, officially, have six returning players from his first UK squad.
Kentucky’s online basketball roster for the 2025-26 season has been updated to include both Walker Horn and Zach Tow. Horn (listed as a senior guard) and Tow (listed as a senior forward) were both walk-on members of last season’s Kentucky basketball team.
With their additions, Kentucky is now set to have six returnees from Pope’s 2024-25 team that went 24-12 and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Horn and Tow join senior guard Otega Oweh, sophomore guard Collin Chandler, sophomore forward Trent Noah and junior forward Brandon Garrison in returning.
There are now 16 players listed on this season’s Kentucky basketball roster.
Horn — a longtime walk-on at UK and the son of Northern Kentucky men’s basketball head coach Darrin Horn — is listed as wearing No. 11 this season for the Cats. Horn previously donned the No. 21 and No. 22 jerseys at Kentucky.
Travis Perry, the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky boys high school basketball history, wore No. 11 for the Wildcats last season before transferring to Ole Miss during the offseason.
Tow — who joined the Kentucky team through an open tryout process for UK students — will wear the No. 20 jersey for the second straight season. Tow played prep basketball at Madisonville-North Hopkins and averaged a double-double for the Maroons as a high school senior during the 2021-22 season.
Horn has appeared in 13 games for the Wildcats over the past three seasons. Tow made two appearances for Kentucky last season, including his college debut in the final moments of a Senior Night home win over LSU.
“He showed up and he fought through 60 guys in a bunch of workouts and then earned the right to come to practice and be on a one-day contract throughout the entire course of the season,” Pope said of Tow after that LSU game in early March. “He came and battled every single day, never said a word, never missed a rep, never missed a practice, never was an issue, never asked for anything. Just came and fought every single day.”
Horn and Tow were joined by junior guard Grant Darbyshire as walk-on players on last season’s Kentucky team. Darbyshire transferred to Cincinnati during the offseason.
Kentucky’s roster and schedule now appear to both be set in stone for the 2025-26 season. All 31 regular-season games have been announced, in addition to the two exhibition contests that Kentucky will host at Rupp Arena against Purdue and Georgetown University.
UK hasn’t officially announced Big Blue Madness yet, but it’s expected to take place on the weekend of Oct. 10, with the Blue-White preseason event to follow the next week.
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 1:21 PM.
