Ahead of UK basketball trip to Vegas, these Cats say they’re ahead of schedule
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky players report quick off‑court bonding during early summer sessions.
- Mark Pope mandated the team stay in the Wildcat Lodge for the summer session.
- UK will practice in Vegas and attend NBA Summer League games while there.
Not even two weeks of Kentucky’s summer practice session had passed before Malachi Moreno was willing to offer up a frank assessment of this new basketball roster.
Though he’ll be only a sophomore when classes start back in the fall, Moreno is the most experienced returnee from last season’s UK team, and that means he’ll be the go-to voice for those looking to make comparisons to the past, especially in the early going.
So the question for the 19-year-old as the second week of the summer session was nearing its end — what most stuck out to him, so far, regarding this group on the court? — was to be expected. His reply, however, had more to do with what’s been going on outside the gym.
“So I was able to host a lot of the guys on their visits in the spring, and I think what sticks out is just how easy we’ve jelled together and how quickly we jelled together,” Moreno said. “I think that’s just a little bit different from last year. Last year, we jelled, but I feel like we jelled at the wrong time. I feel like it took us a little bit.
“But now with this group, I feel like we jelled pretty quick, and now we’re getting to our new concepts, and we’re understanding each other very well. So just having that happen right now, instead of later in the season, it’s definitely going to help us when the season comes around.”
If the Cats are indeed on the same page in the Joe Craft Center at this early stage of summer, the chemistry was first formed off the court, according to all who’ve spoken on the subject.
As is the case pretty much everywhere in college basketball these days, Mark Pope’s third roster as Kentucky’s coach is a mix of personnel with more newcomers than returnees.
Moreno is back. So are Kam Williams and Trent Noah, who both started games for the Cats last season. Braydon Hawthorne and Reece Potter, a couple of players who sat out UK’s 2025-26 campaign as redshirts, have also returned.
But there are nine other players on Pope’s roster, and all of them are new to UK.
That kind of setup, increasingly common in the transfer portal era, makes predicting team chemistry more guesswork than science. But, according to those in the gym, Pope has hit on a formula that is working this time around.
“I just ultimately think it comes down to who you recruit, and I think Coach Pope values that, and the whole staff values the people that we put in our locker room, and it kind of makes it easier to mesh,” Noah said. “I mean, I feel like we all have the same agenda. We all have the same purpose of being here, and that’s to win. So it’s kind of easy to get along with each other.”
The Cats have been together on campus for a few weeks now, and Pope has decided to take their offseason bonding session on the road for a few days.
UK’s original plans for the summer would have ended with a team trip to Jerusalem, where the Cats were going to play in a series of exhibitions while seeing the sites in Israel. Those plans were scrapped due to the war with Iran that has led to further instability in the region, and with makeup arrangements for summer games still up in the air, it created a hole in the program’s offseason itinerary.
So instead of a trip overseas, Pope chose Las Vegas as the Cats’ summer destination.
That plan called for the team to depart Lexington on Wednesday and spend three nights in Vegas before returning to campus Saturday.
While there, Kentucky’s players will take in some of the sights around the entertainment capital. The trip was set up to coincide with the start of the NBA’s Summer League games in Vegas, with the Cats slated to attend Otega Oweh’s opener there Friday night.
The Oklahoma City Thunder rookie was injured earlier this week and now sounds unlikely to appear in the Vegas games, though there are several other former UK players (including a few from Pope’s 2024-25 team) on NBA Summer League rosters.
It won’t be all fun and games. UK officials have found a practice spot for the Cats to keep up their training while they’re away from Lexington as the eight-week summer session hits its halfway point this weekend.
But the primary objective of the trip will be to bring this Kentucky basketball team closer together off the court, where the Cats themselves say they’re already flourishing.
Early interview sessions with the players have been peppered with anecdotes that had nothing to do with basketball. These days, few UK players actually live in the Wildcat Lodge on campus, with most opting for houses or apartments that are a short drive from the practice facility.
But Pope has mandated that the team stay in the lodge for the summer session.
“Coach making us be in the lodge, I feel like it’s helped,” said newcomer Zoom Diallo, the presumed starting point guard for the 2026-27 season. “I feel like that’s going to take you a long way. Like, you see the teams — you can see the Michigan team that just won (the NCAA title) — you know, their connection and their bond was at a high level. So just us starting that early and continuing to put that on, I feel like it’s going to help us a long way.”
Diallo, who played at Washington the past two years, competed against the reigning NCAA champs in the Big Ten last season and gave a first-hand testament to their cohesiveness. He’s hoping his new team finds and maintains a similar chemistry while they’re together.
And he came to campus with that goal in mind.
“We have a lot of new guys just coming in with a lot of energy,” Noah said. “I think that’s something that we have this year, and I feel like it starts with our point guard, Zoom. Every day, you know what you’re going to get with him, and that’s why it’s so fun to play with him. He’s a true leader and a really good player.”
Diallo didn’t take full credit on that front, though he didn’t demur on the subject either.
“I’m not going to say I started it, but having me being able to just express who I am, I feel like it’s opened up to everybody else,” he said.
The result has been a room with many voices. Often, the mood is so at ease that those voices spill into other areas. Moreno’s assessment of living in the Wildcat Lodge this summer?
“It’s awesome,” he said. “I mean, it definitely gets a little loud, because everybody plays (NBA 2K26). So somebody will make a 3, and you just hear, ‘Oooooo!’ Like, you hear it all night long. But, nah, it’s been good.”
Moreno said he isn’t much of a gamer, but there’s been plenty of fun to be had elsewhere.
There have been epic ping pong battles. Trips to the bowling alley. Taking in movies together. Different combinations of players heading out for dinner has been commonplace.
“That’s the fun part about the summer,” Noah said. “You might have like one summer class, so you can go do stuff like that. … Getting away from basketball, and then kind of doing the community service is really cool with the guys. But even stuff that’s not set up through the team and structured, I mean, the best memories are made when it’s spontaneous, going out to eat or going to the movies.”
A few of the Cats have hit the links together, leading to some spirited trash talk between them. That banter has been related to all forms of golf.
“Don’t putt-putt with Milan,” Noah said. “He’s whacking it everywhere. He came in last.”
Milan Momcilovic, the team’s prized transfer this spring, noted his mini-golf struggles occurred during a structured team outing. “I wasn’t a big fan of that course,” he said.
The college senior sounded like he preferred the real thing, boasting that he was the best golfer on the team and had already played some pretty nice courses in the Lexington area. He also acknowledged that he joined Noah on the links recently.
The teams for that nine-hole round consisted of Momcilovic and Moreno vs. Noah and one of his friends. Noah and his buddy won the match, the UK junior pointed out proudly.
“I mean, he’s a good player,” Noah conceded. “Malachi didn’t give him too much help. But, they did lose.”
Just as Momcilovic blamed the course for his putt-putt woes, Moreno blamed the clubs for his own shortcomings. The 7-footer explained that he hadn’t been properly fitted for his own sticks yet, likely meaning he was playing with a set far too short.
“I’m not a golfer,” he said. “I’m a basketball player. So I gotta be good at basketball before I’m good at golf. Golf is more for, you know, when you retire and everything.”
These guys are a long way from those days. But the grins, laughs and good-natured ribbing that has already occurred when topics like these come up speak to a comfortability that the Cats have apparently found with each other.
“I think we got a lot of outgoing guys, which is good,” Momcilovic said. “Because you don’t want to come into the locker room and everyone’s scared to talk. ... I feel like with this team, it’s taken one, maybe two weeks to get everyone comfortable, and I feel like that’s really important, because we just mesh well.”
Momcilovic described himself as a “goofy guy” on the court, someone who takes the game seriously but likes to make teammates feel at ease. Diallo is an “alpha” (that was Noah’s description) between the lines, but every Wildcat who’s weighed in so far has said he’s also the funniest guy on the team. Moreno is such a people person that Pope leaned on him to be an ambassador of sorts when the newcomers came to town for their campus visits or he needed someone to jump on a video call with a recruit.
With those three as the expected pillars of the program, good things could be in UK’s future.
The early returns from off the court are reminiscent of Pope’s first team. Every scholarship player on that roster was new to the program, and with guys like Andrew Carr and Lamont Butler leading the way, those Cats said they came together quickly during the summer.
Last year’s bunch took more of a meandering path toward forming a unit. For those Cats, as Moreno himself has said, the bonds needed time to crystallize, and the results on the court, especially early in the season, didn’t come close to matching the months-long hype.
It’s also worth pointing out that these tales of team bonding are quite common this time of year, no matter the circumstances. But so far, the players are saying all the things that their fans want to hear. Could this be the closest group of the Pope era?
Noah is the only Wildcat who has been a part of all three teams.
“I mean, it’s kind of hard to say that, only being three weeks in,” he said.
For sure, it’s far too early to answer such a question. Much adversity will be headed the Cats’ way in the months to come. So far, though, the vibes have been good.
“This team could win in that category,” Noah said. “But, again, we’re only three weeks in, so we’ll kind of see how that plays out.”
