Kentucky basketball got a couple of good ones, according to NBA-bound teammate
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Steinbach expects Diallo to improve finishing at Kentucky.
- Franck Kepnang projects as Kentucky’s likely backup center with strong shot‑blocking.
- Both Diallo and Kepnang transferred from Washington to join Kentucky’s roster.
Hannes Steinbach will spend this summer and fall preparing for his first season in the NBA.
A couple of his former college basketball teammates at Washington have moved on to other things, too. But they’ll still be playing at the NCAA level. And they’ll still be teammates.
They’ll just be calling Lexington home this time around.
Zoom Diallo, the presumed starting point guard at Kentucky next season, was one of Mark Pope’s biggest acquisitions in the transfer portal this spring. Franck Kepnang, who projects as UK’s backup center in 2026-27, was one of the program’s most intriguing offseason pickups.
Both played alongside Steinbach — a potential NBA lottery pick in this month’s draft — last season in Seattle, and the 6-foot-11 forward lit up with a smile as soon as the names of his former teammates came up.
Steinbach, who led the nation in rebounding as a first-year college player, is widely projected to be picked in the 15-20 range of this year’s draft. During an interview with the Herald-Leader at the NBA Combine in Chicago, he predicted brighter things ahead for Diallo and Kepnang after a disappointing 2025-26 campaign that ended with a 16-17 record for the Huskies last season.
The 20-year-old German led Washington with 18.5 points per game while starting alongside Diallo, whose 4.5 assists per game were tops on the team.
“He’s a great guy,” Steinbach said. “He’s a great downhill guard. He’s just really aggressive. It was great (playing alongside him). Him in the pick and roll, I just enjoyed his vision for me. Giving me the ball in positions where I could score was a great experience.”
Diallo — a 6-4 point guard from Tacoma, Washington — was Pope’s first addition out of the portal, and 247Sports ranks him as the No. 26 overall player in this year’s transfer class. (Only Milan Momcilovic is positioned higher in UK’s transfer class, which is ranked No. 2 nationally.)
While he struggled with turnovers (2.5 per game) as a sophomore at Washington last season, Diallo was one of the nation’s most efficient guards in ball-screen situations, and he’s a physically strong playmaker who excels at getting past the first line of defense.
Pope will hope that he can clean up some of that decision-making once he hits the midrange, and he should have plenty of passing options in an offense that will feature Momcilovic, Kam Williams and Braydon Hawthorne, among others, at the wing spots, with high-upside transfer Alex Wilkins sharing the backcourt and UK returnee Malachi Moreno among the frontcourt players who could benefit from Diallo’s penetration and playmaking abilities.
Diallo also averaged 15.7 points per game last season despite some inconsistencies with finishing at the basket. Steinbach seemed to expect improvements in that area.
“His biggest strengths are getting downhill and then having a lot of finishing in his package,” he said. “And when he’s going downhill, finding his teammates and putting them in a good position is part of his biggest strength.”
While Steinbach was on the receiving end of plenty of Diallo passes over the past several months, Pope’s other Seattle-to-Lexington transfer was a handful for him in practices.
Kepnang is listed at 6-11 and 253 pounds, and he was second in the Big Ten with 2.1 blocks per game last season, trailing only Michigan’s Aday Mara, who’s projected to be a top-10 NBA pick.
“It’s really hard to score around him, with his shot-blocking and his physicality,” Steinbach said of Kepnang. “You’ve got to just figure out some tricks, I would say. Practicing against him every day — as far as that shot-blocking — definitely made me better.”
Kepnang, who will turn 25 years old in October, is preparing for his seventh season at the NCAA level after moving to the United States from Cameroon. His college career has been extended due to a series of injuries that have limited his time on the court over the years.
Last season, Kepnang started in 25 of his 27 appearances — the first time in four years at Washington that he’s managed to play more than 14 games — and set a career high in minutes, averaging 22.4 per game. (He played two seasons at Oregon before transferring to Washington.)
If Kepnang can stay on the court at Kentucky, he’s likely to serve as the primary backup to Moreno, who started 30 games for the Cats last season and is expected to be one of the best centers in college basketball after pulling out of the NBA draft last month.
Kepnang was ranked No. 149 in this transfer class by 247Sports, though his injury history — just 32 games played across his first three seasons at Washington — likely influenced that designation. In addition to the shot-blocking ability, Steinbach said the new Wildcat should provide a boost for team chemistry.
“WIth Franck, you’ve probably got the best locker room guy you could ask for,” he said. “He’s a very genuine guy, a very friendly guy. In the locker room, he’s always going to be about the right stuff. And then on the court, he’s one of the greatest guys I’ve ever played with. He’s just a great, hard worker.”
Steinbach acknowledged following the transfer portal decisions of his former teammates as he was going through the NBA draft process this spring. He didn’t find it odd that the two players ended up at the same school, with those decisions coming nearly a month apart, but he did grin at the thought of both of them getting an opportunity to play for a blue-blood like Kentucky.
“I’m just really happy for them — that they were able to find a new, good place.”
