Going into the 2024-25 season, depth was always viewed as a potential strength of Mark Pope‘s first team at Kentucky.
Our perception of how good this team can be and what they will be good at has changed a bit (in a positive way) since the offseason, but the depth has been as good as expected. Maybe even better. Pope went nine deep in the win over Duke and has gone 10 deep in the three wins against mid-major opponents. 10 Wildcats are averaging at least 11 minutes per outing and none more than 24.
Pope has rolled with the same starting five through the season’s first four games: Lamont Butler at point guard, Otega Oweh at the two, Jaxson Robinson on the wing, Andrew Carr at the four, and Amari Williams manning down the paint. Those five have outscored the opposing team’s starting five a combined 233-203 so far this season. That’s a solid number, especially considering Duke’s starting five outscored Kentucky’s starting five 66-52.
But part of what has made Kentucky so dangerous is that there is no dropoff when the bench mob checks into the game. The Wildcats actually get better from a numbers standpoint. Off the pine, Pope brings in three guys with at least four years of college experience plus a talented sophomore.
Whenever Butler and Oweh come out, they’re replaced by fifth-year veterans Kerr Kriisa and Koby Brea, the latter ranked as the best three-point shooter in college basketball. Another fifth-year player, Ansley Almonor, fills in for Robinson as a spot-up shooter on the wing. Brandon Garrison shows something new every single game as an agile big man. Freshman Collin Chandler is still trying to find his footing, but he looked better in the second half against Lipscomb on Tuesday night.
That’s a five-man group good enough to compete on its own.
Kentucky’s bench has outscored the opposing bench by a combined score of 144-71 across four games. That’s 36 bench points per game for the ‘Cats and 18.3 more bench points per game than the opposition. Pope’s system emphasizes getting up and down the floor, being well-conditioned, and shooting a ton of threes. The bench unit can do that nearly as well as the starters can. But UK’s bench unit is also going up against other bench units, typically a worse set of players than the starters.
That’s not exactly the case with Kentucky.
