4 takeaways from Kentucky Basketball summer workouts thus far

Here are a few key takeaways from the summer workouts for Mark Pope’s Year 2 group.

The Kentucky Wildcats are wrapping up summer workouts as Big Blue Madness is just now over two months away.

With an almost complete roster turnover, Mark Pope and his staff needed to get to work implementing their system to the new players, while also evaluating each player’s progress as they prepare to enter the start of the season.

We all got plenty of peaks from the quick videos showing the practices or the scrimmages between the guys, which now begs the question: What are some early takeaways?

Let’s take a look at that and talk through four major takeaways from summer workouts:

Otega Oweh and Jaland Lowe impress

This spring, there was no bigger story to follow alongside than the potential return of Otega Oweh.

With the BBN on pins and needles until the final day of the NBA Draft withdrawal deadline, the star guards’ return has been a welcome sight in Lexington.

Over the last few months, not only has there been some improvement in his shooting motion, but you can start to see glimpses of the takeover potential we saw last season.

However, the most important player on this team is going to be Jaland Lowe. If he can play well, this Kentucky team has a chance to be incredibly special.

With all the reports coming out of the Joe Craft Center being positive surrounding Lowe, it feels like his addition could be a sleeper as the best commitment pickup this off-season.

Trent Noah is becoming a sharpshooter

A strength of last season’s roster was its ability to knock down the 3-pointer.

Well, with Koby Brea and Jaxson Robinson off to the NBA, Mark Pope and his staff were looking for someone to step up this summer. Enter Trent Noah.

Noah’s role last season was one that shifted throughout the season, but he was never really known as that knock-down shooter. It sounds like this offseason has changed that.

In this offense, the team needs shooters to help spread the floor, especially from the forward position. With all of these early reports, it sounds like Noah.

Add this to a storyline to watch as we enter fall camp.

Center position seems shaky

The biggest question mark entering this season is in the frontcourt.

Overall, it is not a talent issue; it is more of a consistency issue. With Jayden Quaintance working his way back from ACL surgery, to start the year, it appears it will be the Brandon Garrison and Malachi Moreno show.

Garrison has shown flashes, while Moreno has been quite impressive this summer. However, there is still a massive question mark surrounding the position.

Adding more angst to this position is Andrija Jelavic has yet to arrive on campus and probably won’t get any work with the team during summer workouts.

Going to be interesting to watch how they develop and how the rotation looks early in November.

Physicality will be the name of the game

Last season, the Cats relied heavily on skill to achieve the success they did. This year, despite all the players being skillful, this roster is going to bring the physicality night in and night out.

With the SEC talent level at the highest it has been, this UK staff made an effort in the transfer portal to make sure the physicality level was vastly different this season. They accomplished that goal.

This offense will still be fun to watch, but you can guarantee they will not be bullied around this season.