‘We got us a gem’: An inside look at Malachi Moreno’s development at Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Moreno reshaped his body and skills to absorb SEC physicality.
- Coaches scripted a development plan; Moreno embraced daily work.
- Freshman center became starter, rebound leader and NBA prospect.
The buzz began before the first Kentucky basketball game was played.
It’s a common question every preseason: who has been the biggest surprise on the team so far? There was a common answer this time around: Malachi Moreno.
But back then, the UK freshman’s path to playing time looked tricky.
Moreno is a legit 7-footer and a clear talent. He was Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball last year. He led Great Crossing High School to the state championship. He earned McDonald’s All-American honors and came to UK steeped in potential. The thinking then, however, was that Moreno would need some time before he was able to make a major contribution at this level.
And the roster situation for the 2025-26 season afforded him that time.
Brandon Garrison was back in Lexington and the presumptive starter at the 5 spot. Projected NBA lottery pick Jayden Quaintance was recovering from major knee surgery but expected to play significant minutes at center once he returned to the court in the middle of the season.
Mark Pope also added physical, experienced forward Mouhamed Dioubate out of the transfer portal, and 6-11 forward Andrija Jelavic arrived from Europe to bring some international intrigue (and professional experience) to Kentucky’s frontcourt.
Plus, it was already (correctly) assumed that Pope would be going with three-guard lineups as much as possible. That left Moreno plenty of room to grow and ample time to do it.
Or that was the thinking back in October, at least.
It quickly became clear that Moreno had the ability to make a major impact as a freshman, even if that would mean a major adjustment that would last all season long.
The earliest hurdle was playing a more physical brand of basketball.
Moreno had the size, but playing high school hoops in Kentucky isn’t necessarily the best training ground for using it effectively. If a 7-foot, 250-pounder tries to throw his weight around in the post in those situations — where even opposing frontcourt players are several inches shorter and dozens of pounds lighter — he’s liable to get called for a whole lot of fouls.
That wasn’t an issue when Moreno arrived at UK’s practice facility, where Dioubate and Garrison — a couple of ultra-aggressive upperclassmen — were waiting for him.
“It was awesome, because BG and Mo aren’t traditional bigs either,” said UK assistant coach Mikhail McLean. “But they’re both super physical, especially in practice, where we don’t call fouls. So Malachi’s first month was like, ‘Welcome to the SEC.’ Like, ‘We are going to foul you. We’re going to hit you every single possession.’ And he was ready for that fight.
“And I think it really helped him. He came to maybe eight of our practices last year, so him seeing how we practice, he was prepped for everything when he got to us. It was just a matter of his body catching up and his mind slowing down. That’s really what it came down to.”
McLean, a 6-8 forward for the Houston Cougars a little more than a decade ago, is the Kentucky assistant responsible for developing the program’s bigs, and he met with the Herald-Leader recently to talk specifically about Moreno’s growth.
“He pushes me to be better every single day,” Moreno said of his position coach. “And if I’m not living up to the expectation or the standard, he gets on me. And that’s what I need. And I think that’s kind of put a fire in me that I need to get better.”
Malachi Moreno’s first steps at Kentucky
There weren’t a whole lot of surprises when Moreno stepped on campus.
He played his high school ball less than a half-hour drive from Rupp Arena and was a regular on UK gamedays last season. The proximity allowed Kentucky’s coaches to keep a close eye on him, too. And there was a constant line of communication.
“In his whole recruitment process, we kind of scripted like a player development plan for him, in terms of the expectation when he gets here, things he needed to work on,” McLean said. “So we talked to his high school coaches, talked to his dad, his brother. So we were pretty familiar with his game six months before he got on campus, so we kind of knew what we had when he got here.”
UK assistant coach Cody Fueger was Moreno’s primary recruiter, and he had a heavy hand in developing that plan, alongside Pope, McLean and the rest of the staff. The level of competition in Kentucky was one challenge.
“It’s just so hard to evaluate at the high school level for a 7-footer that’s playing against a bunch of kids that are 6-4,” McLean said. “So it’s not like, ‘Oh, you need to work on your post hook.’ Because every time he caught it, he was triple teamed. So it was working on making these reads after you get a rebound, working on making quick decisions before the double team comes. Those are things that were like short-term gratification while he’s in high school.”
When Moreno got to Kentucky, the coaches got him started with more complex reads — especially as it pertained to Pope’s five-out offense — against like-sized players with considerable college experience.
“High school is never really the barometer,” McLean said. “It helps, obviously, because you want to see kids win at the highest level.”
Particularly for post players, the best judge comes on the AAU circuit and at the major recruiting events that draw prospects of similar size and talent. Even there, Moreno was a standout.
“I thought he was the best true center in the country,” said McLean, who first saw Moreno play while he was an assistant coach at Lamar, before taking the UK job. “And there weren’t a whole bunch of centers that were like Malachi. So even in his class, he really didn’t get to go against a bunch of guys like him. So just kind of seeing what he did in those matchups, seeing what he did in the McDonald’s Game, seeing what he did at USA (Basketball camp) in those practices when Coach Pope was there.
“It just kind of reminded us, ‘We got us a gem.’ Like, ‘He’s gonna be really good if he stays with it.’”
Another key ingredient early on was Moreno’s comfort at center.
At a time when seemingly every major prospect with size and any touch at all aspires to be the next Kevin Durant, the kid from Kentucky was just fine playing the more traditional role of a 5.
“He’s very comfortable in his skin,” McLean said. “He works on 3-pointers so that he can be a good free throw shooter. He’s not working on 3s because he wants to take five 3s at some point in his career. He works at the stuff that he’s gonna apply to the game, and then he has some fun and gets a couple of 3s up before the game. But he knows who he is.”
Moreno also knew what he wasn’t. Not yet, at least. And he stepped foot on campus at the beginning of the summer willing to listen to those who knew more than he did.
McLean was instrumental in the evolution of Amari Williams at Kentucky last season and helped develop future NBA players during his time under Kelvin Sampson at Houston. He called Moreno one of the highest-IQ and most coachable players he’s been around.
“He’s a really smart, receptive kid,” he said. “He’s a young guy, but he’s like a coach on the floor, in terms of knowing what we’re trying to accomplish. But he’s super receptive. He wants to get better. I hate sounding cliche, but he’s always one of the first guys in the gym working on his game. He’s always the first guy out there in warmups to work on his stuff. And he’s just focused on getting a little bit better every day. He’s not trying to be an NBA All-Star on Tuesday, right?
“He knows what his long-term goals are, and he’s just trying to take the right steps in that direction every day, whether it’s this year that he gets there or next year or whenever it happens.”
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Becoming a more physical player
A key ingredient for Moreno to be competitive with Dioubate and Garrison in the early going was developing his body to help absorb some of the physical punishment those two dealt out on a daily basis.
“His body was very important,” McLean said. “The first thing was getting stronger, putting on muscle mass. It’s not just about putting on weight. Anybody can put on weight. Me and you could eat five cheeseburgers and put on five pounds. But it was putting on muscle mass, getting his lower base and his core stronger. And because the SEC is just such a physical league, being strong enough and fast enough to play against the 23-year-olds in our league.”
Moreno did, in fact, reshape his body from the moment he stepped on campus. He lifted weights and ate right and worked to improve his strength and endurance. McLean gave a lot of the credit there to head strength coach Randy Towner.
“Malachi is also a worker,” he said. “He does a lot of stuff, because that’s just what he wants to do. But Malachi lifts on game day. He lifts the day before. He is in the weight room. He’s like, ‘I want to be strong enough to move every big in this league.’ And, obviously, you’re not going to be 275 and built like LeBron as a freshman. But you can work toward it. And Malachi has really worked toward his body.”
Anyone who’s watched him play over the course of the entire season has surely seen the growth. At first, Moreno sometimes looked hesitant when the bodies started flying during games. At times, he would shy away from contact or simply not play through it.
As the season progressed, he became more comfortable with that aspect of the game. McLean pointed to the first game against Florida — a 92-83 loss in Gainesville — where Moreno had 11 points, 11 rebounds and went toe to toe with Gators rebounding machine Rueben Chinyelu.
“And even though we lost that Florida game, that was the game when I think he realized, ‘I belong out here with these big dudes. I’m strong enough — even though I’m a freshman — to match up with any of these dudes,’” McLean said.
Adding more skill to a growing game
Talent scouts and some college coaches who lost out on Moreno’s recruitment raved about his skill set behind the scenes, even before he played his first game for Kentucky this season.
The consensus was that this kid had NBA upside. It would just take some time to unlock it.
And while Moreno has outplayed expectations as a freshman, there were still growing pains.
They started during UK’s eight-week summer practice session.
“He really struggled protecting the ball early, because, as a high school big, everything you do is inside the charge circle,” McLean said. “And then you come and you play for Kentucky, for Mark Pope, everything you do is going to be behind a 3-point line. And your catches are going to be on rolls, not necessarily buried inside.”
The UK assistant explained that Moreno struggled with his decision-making and figuring out the right reads on the fly. Making those plays amid a much faster pace of play was a challenge. The miscues mounted in the early going.
“And that was something that Coach Pope really focused on: ‘Hey, you need to be at like one turnover less, every practice.’ And he took pride in it,” McLean said. “He watched a lot of film. He studied it.”
Of all the adjustments Moreno has gone through this season, he acknowledges that making plays in tight spaces and reading defenses quickly have been the biggest challenges.
“It’s a lot faster,” he said. “So I kind of just have to keep my head on a swivel and always know what’s in front of me and what’s behind me. In high school, you can kind of get away with it. A lot of people don’t really pressure as much as they do in college.
“So I think as I’ve gotten a couple more games under my belt, and as the season’s run on, I think my decision-making has gotten a lot better.”
There were flashes of Moreno’s playmaking ability early on. He had 14 assists and seven turnovers in UK’s first seven games of the season. His steady play on both ends of the floor earned him a spot in the starting lineup almost immediately.
After the first five games — a stretch that included disappointing losses to Louisville and Michigan State — Pope shuffled his first five, inserting Moreno into the lineup in place of Garrison. As the season has gone on, Moreno’s passing vision has shown up more and more on gamedays.
“One thing that Coach Pope does at an elite level, he makes his bigs really good passers, right?” McLean said. “And I’m just following his blueprint, in terms of what we work on. But our bigs have always been great passers. … That’s something that we take pride in as a program. So Malachi is somebody that — whenever he gets it — he always tells his teammates, ‘I want the ball in the post so I can pass it to you. And I’ll score if you don’t get open.’ That’s something he’s done since high school. He’s always done that.”
He’s done it more as the season has progressed, however. Others have implied that Moreno has been asking for the ball even more in recent weeks — imploring the coaches to play through him — as he’s grown more comfortable. McLean laughed when asked if that was true. It clearly was.
“He’s doing it because he wants to make a play for somebody else,” he said. “So I would say, since SEC play has started — maybe even the St. John’s game — is where he kind of was barking, like, ‘Yo, give me the ball!’ It’s not every possession. But he’s gonna make something good happen out of it, like seven times, eight times out of 10.”
After the Cats lost their first two SEC games to Alabama and Missouri — with Quaintance starting against Mizzou, his last appearance with UK due to knee issues — Moreno tallied 37 assists and 25 turnovers over the final 16 games of conference play, all starts, with UK going 10-6 in that stretch.
The loss to Missouri also marked starting point guard Jaland Lowe’s final full game with the team. He suffered a season-ending injury three days later, and — while Denzel Aberdeen has picked up the slack at point guard — it’s given Moreno more of a chance to show off his playmaking abilities.
The result has been a consistency that’s not often found in freshman bigs at the highest level.
“He’s steady. I mean, he’s just steady,” Pope said. “It’s not perfect. Like, there are mistakes, but he’s just a steady growth guy. You just don’t see freshman bigs that walk around with the steadiness and performance that he has. It’s really remarkable.
“He’s one of the top centers in our league, and he’s a freshman. It’s pretty spectacular. He just kind of grows his way into that, and he’s doing it with a team that’s a totally different dynamic on the floor than what was anticipated, right? It’s not like Jaland Lowe is on the court making Malachi’s life easy. It’s exactly the opposite. And so for him to do that in that context is really, really impressive.”
What’s next for Malachi Moreno?
When the All-SEC awards were announced last week, Moreno was one of five players chosen for the league’s all-freshman team. Toward the end of the season, he earned SEC Freshman of the Week honors, the first player in the Pope era to do that.
Moreno goes into the NCAA Tournament averaging 8.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.6 blocks per game. He’s Kentucky’s leading rebounder and shot-blocker. UK’s coaches challenged him this season to improve as a free throw shooter. He shot 62.4% as a high school senior. He’s at 70.3% as a college freshman.
There’s even been buzz in NBA draft circles that he could be a first-rounder if he leaves Kentucky this season.
None of this was expected nine months ago. Not this quickly, at least.
Kentucky’s coaches are quick to share the credit.
One key contributor to Moreno’s growth has been his older brother, Michael Moreno, a former standout at Scott County High School who went on to score 1,628 points at Eastern Kentucky and has been with Malachi for every step of his basketball journey.
“His brother is his biggest supporter, his biggest critic,” McLean said. “He calls his brother after every game. His brother was involved in the entire process with the recruitment, in terms of, like, ‘OK, how are you guys gonna use him? What can I do to help him be ready to come to you?’ So his brother gets a lot of the credit for him being ready to play.
“His brother spends a lot of time up here, probably once or twice a week with him, just shooting free throws with him. And just having that big brother effect on him. And it helps, because it’s from a place of love and care. Like, his brother’s not getting any money from Malachi’s performance. He’s just doing it because he wants to see Malachi be the best version of himself.”
McLean also praised Garrison for showing maturity when Pope made the decision to go with Moreno as the starter after just five games and keeping up the practice pressure on the freshman before, during and after that transition.
“He accepted the role change a lot better than any of us anticipated,” McLean said.
McLean and Pope and the rest of the staff deserve credit, too, of course. But the UK assistant coach made clear that most of it should go to the player himself.
He called Moreno the “glue guy” of this UK basketball team. He also confirmed what has been apparent to those who have watched him over the course of his young career — that this 19-year-old is deliberate and patient when it comes to his own growth. He doesn’t skip steps. He never gets ahead of himself. He’s always there to soak up as much knowledge as he can.
“It’s great, because when the players are the ones leading the stuff, that’s when you know you’re in a good spot,” McLean said. “I never told Malachi he needed to come out two hours before the game to work on this game. That’s his routine. Everything we do is his routine. And then in terms of, like, skill development, I’m taking things that he used a little bit of in high school — because he was a McDonald’s All-American for a reason — I’m sprinkling in stuff that’s going to help him in our offense and in our scheme. And then we are teaching him different ways that he can be impactful as a defender and as a rebounder.
“You bring all of that together, and now it’s the fact that he’s doing things that he enjoys doing with things that we need him to get better at. And it doesn’t feel like work. It’s more fun.”
Moreno has come a long way since he first arrived at UK a little more than nine months ago. He knows he still has a long way to go, and that excites everyone involved in this process.
What could year two at Kentucky look like? McLean grinned when that scenario was mentioned.
He already has plans. And he’s seen some of it in action at the Joe Craft Center.
“I think it’s really just carrying over things that he’s worked on in practice to the court,” he said. “He is more than capable of driving from the 3-point line and making plays as a scorer and a facilitator, kind of similar to what Amari does. He’s super capable of taking over a game inside on the post — as a passer and as a scorer — and just kind of being more aggressive, looking for touches. Continuing to work on his free throws. Being like a 75% free throw shooter. And just knowing how to control the game, whether you’re scoring or not scoring.
“Because he’ll be a sophomore, but he’ll be like a senior in terms of his expertise.”
McLean is well aware of the NBA draft speculation around Moreno, who is being discussed as a potential late first-rounder or early second-rounder going into the NCAA Tournament. The freshman could very well test those waters this spring — and McLean didn’t offer up any of his own speculation on what might happen there — but there’s a strong sense around the program that Moreno will be back in Lexington next season.
McLean did say he thinks Moreno should spend a week or two away from UK this offseason, suggesting that he work out with established NBA guys elsewhere — a common practice for young pro prospects — so he can get more of an up-close look at what he’s working toward.
He knows Moreno would be selected by some NBA team if he made the jump this year. But this isn’t a kid who’s skipped steps in the past. And a lot could be accomplished by putting in more work as a Wildcat first.
“He would get drafted,” McLean said. “But he wants to win here so badly. I’m not saying he’s gonna be here for five years. But he wants to win at Kentucky so badly. So, obviously, we’ll see kind of where the cards lie at the end of the season.
“But he wants to be back here and he wants to win here next year. And this year.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 6:30 AM.
