KSR’s takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s surprise open practice

Well, I can’t say anyone expected that! With an hour’s heads-up, Mark Pope opened the doors to Kentucky basketball’s final practice of the summer at Rupp Arena, telling fans to be there at 10:30 a.m. ET sharp for a behind-the-scenes look at their Wildcats before the team breaks for a couple of weeks ahead of the fall semester. KSR jumped in the car and rushed to join Big Blue Nation on short notice, with a few hundred lining up and pouring into the stands for the complete hour-and-a-half practice. No restrictions or filters with fans watching and the cameras rolling — all-access to Pope’s program for the ultimate gift ahead of the season. Couldn’t make it to Rupp? KSR’s got you covered with the top takeaways. Shoutout to Mark Pope for hosting us When I woke up this morning, there was not a single part of me that expected to spend 90 minutes inside Rupp Arena before lunchtime watching the Kentucky men’s basketball team run through a practice. But this job is always full of surprises. When I opened up Instagram around 9:15 a.m., I saw Mark Pope was currently live on his page. Of course, I had to click it. It was only about a two-minute live session, but I was lucky enough to catch it. The moment he announced an open practice at Rupp, the whole day changed. I quickly packed up my things and headed downtown. I arrived earlier than most, which allowed me the chance to observe as Kentucky fans across the city slowly caught wind. A small group of a dozen grew to a few hundred over the course of the next hour. Admittedly, my expectations for the actual practice weren’t high — I was expecting some stretching and drill work, which we did see, but there was plenty of 5-on-5 action spread throughout the 90-minute practice. It was one of the cooler experiences I’ve had yet doing this job. I’m sure the fans who joined me inside Rupp could say the same thing about their time as a Kentucky fan. Pope and the players made sure to thank the fans that stuck around for the entire practice, shaking hands and signing autographs. This was a massive PR win for Pope and the program. Well done, and we thank them all for having us. — Zack Geoghegan Interesting injury developments The biggest question for any practice: who is actually participating? We learned a lot about where this team is health-wise to put a bow on the summer. For starters, Kam Williams was in street clothes with a boot after undergoing a follow-up procedure on his foot earlier in the summer. Nothing new there, as the returning junior sat next to Lee Anne Pope at the scorer’s table for the majority of practice. Elsewhere, Justin McBride was back in a full-contact capacity after a gnarly illness kept him off the floor for a couple of weeks. Reece Potter has also worked through a back issue this summer, but participated with no restrictions and got a ton of run. The biggest notes, though, were Franck Kepnang’s involvement and Trent Noah’s absence. The former is still working his way back from a season-ending leg injury at Washington and the staff has been extremely cautious with the seventh-year center, not risking his availability when it actually matters. That’s why seeing him out there in sprints and full-contact individual drills was a fun development. As for the latter, he tweaked his hamstring in early July, which Pope described as “a nothing” at the time. Noah popped up in the publicized shooting competition won by Mason Williams last week, and though he wore a practice jersey on Thursday, the rising junior did not participate in the summer finale. It was a clean injury report for the Wildcats elsewhere, though, right where you want them to be going into the fall semester. Mason Williams lives up to the hype The freshman guard has been the talk of the summer, someone who turned heads during the Wildcats’ first set of player interviews by telling the world he was going to be “the hardest worker to ever come to Kentucky,” followed by his teammates quickly calling him the biggest surprise of early practices. “I feel like he’s a sleeper. He’s a worker,” Zoom Diallo said in late June. Pope added fuel to the fire by saying he had “high hopes for him and his trajectory” from what he had seen early, only for him to go and beat Momcilovic and Noah in a week-long shooting contest to end the summer. After getting eyes on him for the very first time, KSR can confirm that Williams is, in fact, good. And he’s gonna play in year one, maybe even as a 15-plus MPG guy right behind Diallo as PG2. The dude just makes good decisions, plays hard, never turns the ball over and hits shots while also bringing a college-ready body to the table. I’ll even go as far as to say he’s a future pro who won’t make it to year three in Lexington. That might be a hot take at this stage, but who cares if he’s passing the eye test this early while being surrounded by other high-level talent? Buy Mason Williams stock now. — Jack Pilgrim Maybe they will push for 30-plus threes? Is this the year Pope gets his wish with 30 3-pointers per game out of the Cats? They’re going to give it a real shot, in my opinion. It’s not hyperbole to say Kentucky looks to fire away from three every single time down the floor, and there is shooting at all five positions to justify that philosophy. Momcilovic pulls from 30 feet, Alex Wilkins dances to create clean looks, Braydon Hawthorne and Ousmane N’Diaye are not shy — just go right on down the list. And that’s not factoring in Kam Williams and Trent Noah, who are obvious perimeter threats, as well. With an extended look at full-court five-on-five, the team’s willingness to fire away early and often popped right away. — Jack Pilgrim Jerone Morton was the summer wins leader Jerone Morton was a surprise standout during the surprise practice — but maybe he shouldn’t have been. He was near the top of the team’s wins leaderboard throughout summer practice. That trend continued in front of the fans. Morton was excellent defensively in the 5-on-5 drills alongside Mason Williams. He had a couple of rips on Zoom Diallo at midcourt that led to easy buckets the other way. Morton is sneaky with his defensive approach. But he also knocked down several open shots during drill work. Morton and Williams both proved (at least in this practice setting) that they’re worthy of real rotational spots this season. We’ll see if that remains the case once the regular season actually begins, but there was no denying the impact Morton had on both ends of the floor. He was vocal, too — I liked seeing that from someone who will be handling the ball at times for the ‘Cats. — Zack Geoghegan Zoom Diallo is the clear-cut team leader There was good and bad from Zoom Diallo’s practice performance. Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Diallo finished the summer with the most turnovers among his teammates, which isn’t a huge shock for PG1, but we saw how some of those turnovers came about at practice. There were simple turnovers like losing his handle or dribbling the ball off his body, along with tougher turnovers like trying to make long skip passes that were intercepted. He was playing fast more often than not, which sometimes led to those miscues. But there were still plenty of moments where those skip passes got through, where his drives led to layups or kickout passes. I don’t remember every three-pointer Diallo took throughout the practice, but I remember him knocking down enough for them to stick out. My main takeaway from Diallo’s performance, however, was his leadership. There wasn’t a more vocal or competitive player on the floor than Diallo. He wants to win badly — that much is obvious. Cutting down on turnovers this season will be key to making that happen. — Zack Geoghegan