It’s not all sunshine and rainbows when talking about this Kentucky basketball roster in 2025-26, one considered among the best in the sport following the return of Otega Oweh — the likely preseason SEC Player of the Year coming off an All-SEC debut with the Wildcats. Mark Pope assembled a 14-man group featuring a little bit of everything, but is it too much of everything?
That’s what the Field of 68 guys debated early Monday morning when breaking down the biggest winners and losers of the offseason with the draft withdrawal deadline officially behind us.
Let’s start with Oweh and his impact, Rob Dauster confident the 6-4 guard’s return takes a top-10 team and pushes them toward No. 1 status. If Kentucky isn’t the top-ranked team in the country, Pope’s squad belongs in the conversation, at minimum.
“I don’t think Oweh coming back has anywhere near the impact on what Kentucky’s season could be as what (Labaron) Philon coming back does for Alabama or (Tahaad) Pettiford coming back does for Auburn. I think that takes both of those teams from borderline top-25-ish, if that, to top-10 or top-15 in the country. Whereas with Kentucky, I think that getting Oweh takes them from being like a top-eight to top-10 team in America to — we really got to have a conversation about whether or not this team could be the No. 1 team. They could be the best team in college basketball.
“I think it’s still probably Purdue, Houston, Florida, to me, in that order, but I don’t think you can have the conversation of who is the best team in college basketball without having Kentucky in that conversation.”
That’s the good news: way too much talent to not be included in the main group of championship contenders, right where you want to be if you’re Kentucky and Mark Pope.
But is it too much talent? That could be the bad news, the Field of 68 panel curious how Pope and his staff manage so many pieces capable of playing — if not deserving of on-court reps. With five spots at any given time and one basketball, how much is too much?
“I think there will be too many guys on that team that you’re going to have to feed,” Jeff Goodman said. “Money-wise, a lot of those dudes are making money, and they’re going to all need minutes. (Jayden) Quaintance, I don’t think he’s going to be ready for the start of the season, but the perimeter — look at how loaded that thing is! … You got Oweh, who played a ton at Kentucky. You got Jaland Lowe, who played a lot at Pittsburgh. (Denzel) Aberdeen, who obviously is coming over to play major minutes from the defending national champs, Florida. Kam Williams, coming over from Tulane, he can really shoot the hell out of the ball. Collin Chandler is coming back, waiting for his turn at Kentucky. Jasper Johnson coming in as one of the top freshmen in the country. Trent Noah — we saw him go off at Rupp Arena last year.
“What’s that? Seven perimeter guys? That’s a lot of mouths to feed.”
Dauster calls it a ‘balancing act’ for Pope to deal with, knowing Kentucky will ‘probably go 11 or 12 deep’ after seeing how his rotation worked last year, when healthy.
“That’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem — an obstacle that Mark Pope has to be able to navigate,” he said. “If you have one or two guys that are upset in your locker room about the minutes they are getting, making sure they’re happy with those NIL paychecks that keep coming in, that’s probably going to be the key for Mark Pope to kind of keep this thing going.”
Those questions have Goodman playing wait-and-see on the Wildcats from Lexington.
“I’m not ready to say that (Kentucky is preseason No. 1), but maybe,” he said. “I mean again, I think they’ve got the depth that those other teams don’t have. … They’re in the mix, I guess. I don’t think they’re in the mix for preseason No. 1 for me, but they’re somewhere from four to eight. It’s going to be figuring out role allocation.”
“I think that’s the one thing that probably has me — when I say that there’s a top three, that’s probably the biggest thing about Kentucky,” Dauster responded. “How are the pieces going to fit? How are the personalities going to fit? How is the locker room going to all come together? If there’s one guy that can figure it out, it’s probably going to be Mark Pope.”
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