Kentucky is beating up on cupcakes. Why can’t the Cats push around the big boys?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky reshaped its 2025-26 roster to add length, athleticism and sustained grit
- Practices emphasize consistent physical contact and competition to build toughness
- Losses to Louisville and Michigan State exposed lack of physicality against top opponents
Before this Kentucky men’s basketball season began, a casual conversation with a regular at the Wildcats’ practice sessions turned to talk about one of the team’s most intriguing new arrivals.
Mouhamed Dioubate, this UK basketball insider said, had been a beast in that setting.
With a look of equal parts apprehension and amusement, it was said that Dioubate — a 6-foot-7, 220-pound transfer from Alabama — had to that point already injured two people in practice.
One was a graduate assistant. One was a fellow Wildcat. Neither injury turned out to be serious, but the point was obvious. The look of apprehension said that Dioubate was a force to be reckoned with. The look of amusement said that this was precisely the reason he was brought in to play for Mark Pope’s second UK basketball team, and the hope was that this attitude would spread.
A few days later, freshman center Malachi Moreno — a 7-footer listed at 250 pounds and looking every bit of both measurements — offered up an on-the-record confirmation.
“That’s just part of the physicality in practice,” he said with a chuckle. “I mean, we’re just beating each other up, trying to get a win in practice. Because everybody wants to win, and we’re all competitive. So that’s kind of just how the cookie crumbles.”
The message was clear: step onto the court in the Joe Craft Center this season, and you better be ready for a battle.
That’s what Pope had in mind when he put together this 2025-26 UK basketball roster. His first bunch of Wildcats thrived through finesse, but they consistently struggled defensively and were often pushed around on the court. Those shortcomings were glaring once SEC play began, and beating up on Kentucky proved to be a go-to strategy for several teams within the conference.
Pope didn’t like that.
While he built his national profile as a coach on offensive intricacy, his reputation as a player was predicated on a do-whatever-it-takes mentality. When it came time to build his second UK roster, he looked more to length, athleticism and grit than he had a year earlier.
All of that showed early on.
UK’s first act against outside competition was to defeat No. 1 Purdue in an exhibition game, beating up on the Boilermakers and overwhelming them with strength.
“I thought they embraced the physicality of the game,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said afterward.
And then, a disturbing trend.
Starting with the regular-season opener against Nicholls, the opposing coaches of the mid-major teams that rolled through Rupp Arena talked up the Cats’ ability to punish their overmatched players physically. That part was music to Pope’s ears.
But that wasn’t what the Louisville Cardinals were talking about after they beat UK 96-88 in the Yum Center, a game in which the Cats failed to effectively apply their physicality. And no one who watched Michigan State dismantle Kentucky in Madison Square Garden a week later needed a box score to know the Spartans had pushed Pope’s team around at every opportunity.
The eyeballs said it all.
“We knew that was going to be — as Coach (Tom Izzo) put it — ‘a football game on the hardwood,’” said Michigan State big man Jaxon Kohler.
What went unsaid is that only one team managed to play that style. And it wasn’t the Wildcats.
Kentucky’s next chance: North Carolina
The warning signs were actually there before the regular season began.
Six days after beating Purdue, the Cats wilted in their exhibition finale against Georgetown, which came into Rupp Arena and upset UK — if “upsets” are a thing in the preseason — by employing a physical style.
“I thought our ball pressure really bothered ’em, and I thought the physicality of the game played into what I call, ‘Big East basketball,’” said Hoyas coach Ed Cooley, who changed his voice to a more ominous tone when uttering those last three words.
He wasn’t lying.
The Wildcats’ most celebrated enforcer declared that night that his team wouldn’t get pushed around again.
“I don’t think that should be a problem moving forward,” Dioubate said, clearly ticked off. “... Teams are going to know us this year for defense. So I think today was just a game for us to just see that we can’t take any days off, no matter who we play. At all.”
Against Louisville and Michigan State, the Cats turned in two of the worst defensive efforts of the Pope era. (And there were some real duds in year one.)
Yet they continued to steamroll the lesser competition. After an 88-46 victory over Loyola (Maryland) on Nov. 21 — a game in which UK outrebounded its opponent 56-33 and won points in the paint by a 52-16 margin — Pope spoke with frustration, knowing full well that this performance didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.
“The physicality of the game is something that’s haunting me right now,” he said, adding that “we’re going to go find answers” to this problem.
By all accounts, UK’s practices this season have been much more physical than the same sessions a year ago. Pope has said so. His returning players have said so.
Sophomore guard Collin Chandler laughed out loud at a question on the subject.
“It’s just different. We have different guys,” he said, seemingly catching himself, not wanting to say anything negative about his former teammates.
“We’re wanting to guard,” he continued. “We take it personally. It’s what we’re going to pride ourselves in. We have the best defensive coaches in the country, but it has to also come from the players and our desire to compete. That’s a big thing that we see in practice every day — we just want to compete.”
Last season, Brandon Garrison — then a sophomore and inarguably the most physical player on the team — ruffled feathers among his fellow Cats by setting screens in practice that were deemed too physical. Not this year. He adopts a wide smile pretty much every time the subject of physicality in practice comes up.
“I’d say it’s more physical and competitive, for sure,” he said.
With so many big bodies on the court — Moreno, Garrison, Dioubate, the 6-11 Andrija Jelavic and 7-1 Reece Potter, not to mention the pending return of the dominant Jayden Quaintance — that’s to be expected.
Last season, talk of hard screens drew sideways looks. This season, guys like Moreno joke about how much it hurts when someone such as Dioubate puts an elbow into their chest.
“I mean, we’ve been with each other for five months. He knows what hurts and what doesn’t,” he said to laughter from those within earshot, even adding a chuckle himself. “So taking a hit from Mo definitely hurts, but I think it just makes us better.”
So far, it hasn’t made them better against the teams that Pope built this roster to be better against. They couldn’t push Louisville around. And then they got pushed around by Michigan State.
On Tuesday night, the Cats get another shot at a marquee opponent. North Carolina comes to Rupp Arena, and UK needs not only a win but to impose its will against someone good.
As for why it hasn’t happened yet, Pope doesn’t have an answer. If he did, it would no longer be a question. But going into this blue-blood battle, it should be top of mind for those who tune in. On Friday night, the Cats play Gonzaga in Nashville — another chance at early season redemption.
By next weekend, we should all know more about this team’s ability to play the style of ball Pope was hoping for when he built this roster, for better or worse.
“That’s a question that we’re going to continue to answer throughout the course of the season,” he said. “... I have an unbelievable amount of confidence that we’re going to have a great season here. And I also know for a fact that we have an extraordinary amount of work to do. This is the best stuff, actually, for me. I know there might be some consternation out there, but I love it, man. I love it when you have to dig in deep and find your way through. And where guys are forced to really not just look at each other and love each other, but lean on each other and count on each other and have each other bail each other out. …
“We have guys that are going to be able to accomplish great stuff. So now it’s a process of scraping ourselves up and going and doing it.”
