Five big questions as the Kentucky basketball summer practice session begins
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky men’s basketball summer practice begins Monday with the full roster on campus.
- Coaches are permitted eight hours per week over eight weeks with players.
- Summer session should offer early indicators on Diallo, Wilkins and newcomers.
The entire Kentucky men’s basketball team is on campus, momentum is back on Mark Pope’s side, and summer practice is scheduled to begin Monday.
The third season of the Pope era will once again feature a roster with more new names than familiar faces, and that means the next couple of months will be filled with questions.
By the end of UK’s summer session, there should be plenty of answers. Or, at least, Pope and his coaching staff should get some early indicators of just how good this group could be.
Not long ago, there was a clear sense of uneasiness over the outlook for the 2026-27 season. But the return of starting center Malachi Moreno and the addition of 3-point sharpshooter Milan Momcilovic restored confidence in Pope’s vision for Year 3, while the more recent commitment of five-star recruit Ryan Hampton has offered hope for the program’s future beyond this season.
So, the Cats will hit the practice court at the Joe Craft Center with plenty of positive vibes Monday, and UK’s coaches will be permitted to spend eight hours per week (over the course of eight weeks) with their players this summer.
With so many newcomers in key roles, not every question about this roster will be completely answered by the time the summer session wraps up. But before word from inside these practices begins to leak out of the Craft Center, here are five big ones that could have a major impact on UK’s season.
Will Kentucky’s backcourt click?
There’s national intrigue around this UK roster heading into what could be a pivotal third year on the job for Pope, especially now that Moreno is back and Momcilovic is a Wildcat.
But the biggest topic of speculation around these Cats — and perhaps the biggest key to their level of success on the court — centers on Zoom Diallo, Alex Wilkins and how well they’ll mesh.
National college basketball analysts have been abuzz all spring regarding the potentially dynamic duo that Pope has assembled to lead his backcourt.
Some clearly think that putting two ball-dominant lead guards with a history of turnover issues together is a recipe for … not necessarily disaster, but something short of what Pope will need to win big in Year 3 and keep his doubters at bay.
Others are more bullish on the arrangement, quick to acknowledge that, if Diallo and Wilkins can click into a cohesive two-man unit, the results could be overwhelmingly positive, as well as undeniably entertaining.
Diallo projects as UK’s PG1, and he’s already shown an ability to get downhill and make good things happen, as well as a penchant for positive results out of the pick and roll. If he can keep up the playmaking (4.5 assists per game at Washington last season) and get the miscues under control (2.5 turnovers per game as a sophomore with the Huskies), the 6-foot-4 guard could find himself among the SEC’s best point guards.
Wilkins had to do too much as a freshman at Furman, and while there was plenty of good (17.8 points and 4.7 assists per game), only three players in the country committed more than the 3.8 turnovers per game he coughed up last season.
The hope is that moving Wilkins (a 6-5 talent with NBA upside) into a slightly different role will bring out even more of that potential, and there’s reason to believe that he could grow, perhaps considerably, into a better 3-point shooter at UK after hitting 32.8% from deep last season, when every opposing defense was locked in on trying to stop him.
But reaching the ceiling of this arrangement will take some sacrifice.
Diallo will need to fine-tune those playmaking abilities while retaining the strength, burst and downhill skills that make him such a dynamic player. And Wilkins will have to find ways to make an offensive impact even when the ball doesn’t stay in his hands.
Can they do it? The next eight weeks should offer some early clues.
Can Mason Williams contribute?
Pope has been talking like a coach who’s planning to play Diallo and Wilkins together, and though there are other Cats across the positional spectrum who fit his “creator” criteria, there’s not much doubt that getting these two guards to click will provide UK with its best offense.
If both start, it could lead to some instances of simultaneous fatigue, in which case another playmaking option will be needed off the bench. There also will be the inevitable times when foul trouble causes a lineup shuffle. And UK fans don’t need to be reminded of what has happened to Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa, Jaland Lowe and even tertiary point guard Jaxson Robinson over the first two seasons of the Pope era.
Bringing in two players with the playmaking potential of Diallo and Wilkins is great. But a third competent Cat in that role would be even better, as the past couple of seasons have proven.
Can Mason Williams be that guy?
Williams is a 6-2, 185-pound playmaker from the 2026 high school class. He’s the son of former NBA All-Star point guard Mo Williams, who was added to Pope’s coaching staff just days after the younger Williams joined the program as a recruit.
That coaching news ultimately overshadowed the roster addition that came before it, but it’s worth remembering that Williams is on this squad, because he should get an opportunity to make an immediate impact, if he’s up to the task.
He obviously has the point guard pedigree, but he made a name for himself as a high school prospect, too. He can utilize his strength and has ample skill. He’s shown an ability to score from all three levels while also creating opportunities for teammates. He did all of this while playing a demanding schedule at the high school and grassroots levels.
His national ranking (No. 119 overall, according to 247Sports) is far below the standard of the John Calipari era of UK basketball, but plenty of like-rated young players have found ways to make an immediate impact elsewhere in recent years.
And Williams won’t be asked to do too much right away at Kentucky, with Diallo and Wilkins there to shoulder the lion’s share of the playmaking load. If he can simply emerge as a reliable fill-in for just a few minutes a game, it would go a long way toward filling out UK’s backcourt.
All but one of his new teammates has experience as part of a college or pro team, and this summer will provide Williams with his first extensive opportunity to play against that level of competition.
How he responds should be an early indicator of what he’ll be capable of as a freshman.
How good is Ousmane N’Diaye?
Who’s the most intriguing player on Pope’s 2026-27 team? Throw a dart at the roster, and it would likely be difficult to argue with wherever it lands.
Ousmane N’Diaye has to be at or near the top of any such list, however, and the biggest development of the UK basketball move-in last weekend was his early arrival in Lexington.
Former Kentucky player Andrija Jelavic, who also came to town with professional experience, was open about feeling behind when he missed out on last year’s summer practice session and had to play catch-up in the fall as a result, a delayed arrival that surely had a negative impact on his first season of college basketball.
It wasn’t that long ago that Zvonimir Ivisic, another former pro, got off to an even later start to his college career after a series of delays that cost him months of practice and game time and ultimately derailed his freshman season.
N’Diaye — a 6-11 forward and elite athlete — won’t have to wait. He’s here, and these next eight weeks should be crucial in allowing him a softer landing as he transitions to the NCAA level while giving Pope and the UK coaching staff an opportunity to evaluate him alongside his new teammates.
The video on N’Diaye is as interesting (and entertaining) as any of Kentucky’s additions for next season, but fans shouldn’t expect that to translate to NBA lottery pick status. He’s 22 years old with multiple seasons of top-tier professional experience in Europe under his belt. So, he’s not exactly an unknown commodity.
There’s also a wide spectrum of opinions in the college basketball world regarding his potential. Some who scouted him say he’ll struggle to apply his game to this level. Others say he could emerge as a starter-level player at a place like Kentucky.
UK’s coaches are hoping the latter turns out to be true, and they don’t need N’Diaye to be a star. If he can tighten up his game — turnovers and shot selection have been issues in the past — and be a dependable rotation player for Pope, it’s a win.
By the end of the summer, UK’s coaches should have a pretty clear idea if that will be the case.
Will Pope’s potent offense return?
Kentucky basketball fans fell in love with the running, gunning, ball-flying-all-over-the-court style that Pope brought to Lexington in Year 1, a pace the Cats were able to largely keep up even when the injury bug hit.
That group ranked No. 10 nationally in offensive efficiency, despite those injuries to Butler, Kriisa, Robinson and other key players. Last season, Lowe went down in the preseason, the Cats’ offense never looked in sync, and Pope’s scoring unit finished the season at No. 40 in the country.
Part of that was Pope’s shift — many will call it an overcorrection — toward a more athletic, defensive-minded and “tougher” roster that he clearly felt was needed to compete in the unforgiving SEC. And then the loss of his only true point guard compounded the issues.
Well, Pope has some toughness on this 2026-27 team, too, but it looks like a group that will be closer in philosophy to that first UK team (and possibly Pope’s final BYU squad, which was offensively dazzling on a nightly basis).
Can this Kentucky team get back into top-10ish territory in offensive efficiency? Given the potential defensive limitations, the Cats might have to if they’re going to truly compete at the highest level. And given the personnel, it appears possible.
A player like N’Diaye (or transfer forward Justin McBride) could break into the starting five, but the most offensively intriguing lineup at Pope’s disposal is probably the combination of Diallo and Wilkins (two potentially elite drivers and creators), Momcilovic and Kam Williams (two potentially elite 3-point shooters) and Moreno, an offensively versatile man in the middle who should be able to score when needed and keep the ball moving at all other times.
And don’t forget about Braydon Hawthorne, another highly intriguing wing player who could be a formidable perimeter shooter, especially in Pope’s offense.
The pieces for offensive excellence are here. They’ll just need to figure out how to play together, and Pope and his staff will have to put them in the best situations to succeed. That’s what the summer is all about.
Can the Cats avoid injuries?
It’s difficult to imagine a worse run of injury misfortune than Pope has endured over his first two seasons as Kentucky’s head coach. The what-ifs will continue for years.
It’s particularly perplexing since most of the players whose seasons ended or were drastically impacted over the past two years had no substantial injury histories before they came to Kentucky.
And as shake-your-head frustrating as the situations that guys like Butler, Robinson, Lowe and Williams found themselves in were, there was another injury that often gets overlooked but had a major effect on how quickly the vibes around the Pope era turned.
Otega Oweh was the SEC preseason player of the year last fall, even though he was coming off a painful toe injury that basically robbed him of months of preparation just before the 2025-26 campaign began and then lingered for weeks into the season itself.
Watch the way Oweh moved (a major benefit of his game) during the first few weeks of the season compared to the end, and it’s impossible to miss the difference. Normally a make-no-excuses kind of guy, Oweh has acknowledged that the turf toe injury hampered him in the early going, limiting some of the weapons that make him the best version of himself.
This isn’t to say that UK would have defeated Louisville, Michigan State, Gonzaga or North Carolina if Oweh were at full health for those games, but perhaps one or two of those outcomes could have been different, and maybe the disheartening losses to the Spartans and Zags wouldn’t have ended up quite as lopsided. Those games fueled the angst that ultimately defined the season.
Revisionist history aside, the truth of the matter is that injuries have been a major part of Pope’s tenure so far. And Oweh’s injury occurred in the final days of summer practice.
Kentucky can’t afford anything similar this time around. Finding out as much as he can about this roster will be crucial for Pope over these next eight weeks. Staying healthy will be paramount.
And while avoiding the injury bug will largely be outside of the UK coaches’ control, there will surely be a collective sigh of relief if they get to the end of those eight weeks with everyone in good health.
