By LARRY VAUGHT
Amari Williams is being counted on not only to be a defensive stopper for Kentucky this year but also one of the team’s best passers and potentially even the team assists leader.
The 7-foot, 265-pound Williams grew up in Nottingham, England before coming to the United States and playing four years at Drexel where he was the Colonial Athletic Association defensive player of the year three straight times before transferring to Kentucky this season.
Not bad for an athlete who grew up playing soccer, not basketball. He liked soccer but then his older brother started playing basketball because he hit a growth spurt earlier.
“You just want to play whatever your older brother is playing. I just kind of followed along. Then my growth spurt came along and I couldn’t be playing soccer at 6-10, so I definitely had to switch,” the UK graduate student said. “I always liked soccer more but I had to switch.”
Williams calls basketball a “growing sport” in England and pointed to English professional players who inspire youngsters. While he wouldn’t classify himself as a rock star in England because of his collegiate success in the U.S., he will admit many have noticed what he’s done.
“There’s quite a few of us. We’ve got a few in the NBA, a few at other schools around the country (U.S.),” Williams said. “We just try to do our part to grow the sport in England. I really just started out playing for fun and played against older guys. I eventually got into the national level play where we went against other European countries and that just led me to college basketball.”
Williams believes his passing skills in soccer have translated to basketball. He had eight games at Drexel last year with three or more assists and averaged 1.9 assists per game. His junior season he had 12 games with three or more assists and averaged 2.3 assists per game. During his four years at Drexel, he averaged 1.8 blocked shots and 1.6 assists per game.
Not only does coach Mark Pope believe Williams could lead the team in assists based on how Pope’s offense likes to use the center, but teammates could see it happening, too.
“Amari is a special passer. He can make passes even guards cannot because he sees the court so well with his size,” UK guard Jaxson Robinson said. “He just keeps getting better and more comfortable in the offense. He’s so unselfish and is always looking to pass the ball.”
Robinson played for Pope at BYU where 6-10 center Aly Khalifa averaged 4.0 assists per game last season.
“With the way we play and plays we have, it could happen,” Williams said when asked about leading the team in assists. “I have great shooters and this is the best shooting team I’ve ever been part of. Coach instills confidence to shoot whenever you are open, so when I kick it out I know they are going to make shots. We have a good cutting team, too. I still know I can take guys off the dribble but when I pass, I know there is a great chance someone is going to make a shot.”
Williams finished his Drexel career with 1,081 points along with 732 rebounds and 186 blocks. He averaged 12.2 points and 7.8 rebounds in his four years at Drexel. Williams understands while his passing impressed Pope, his defense is also being counted on heavily.
“We’ve got so many offensive threats on this team, but not a lot of them are kind of defensive minded. So just helping my team in that aspect, I feel like that’s kind of separates me from others,” Williams said.
He also hears the chatter wondering if he can back the jump from the Colonial Athletic Association to the SEC, a league that has eight teams in the AP preseason top 25 poll.
“I mean, I’m motivated by that all the time. Going into games this season, just knowing that that’s what people think of me and going out there and just proving them otherwise is important,” Williams said. “So yeah, that’s something I have in the back of my mind.”
Oklahoma coach Porter Moser coached against Kentucky’s Mark Pope when Pope was at BYU and knows what a “good coach” that Pope is.
“He teaches great spacing. Offensively he had such — the way the ball moved, the way he could do things, and everybody that knows Mark, he’s just an unbelievable guy,” Moser said.
“The fact that he played at Kentucky, is an ambassador for them, it’s been fun to watch as I studied him in his first months on the job. He’s put together a great roster. (Oklahoma transfer) Otega (Oweh) started for me the last two years. He’s going to get toughness, a great kid, and really athletic, can go downhill, physical, and plays with an edge. They’re going to have a lot of good things from Otega.”
Texas coach Rodney Terry also competed against Pope’s BYU teams and considers him not only a “tremendous coach” but says he also was a “good player” at Kentucky.
“I think I’m living my dream job. It’s my dream job here. Every day I’m blessed and honored to be the head coach at University of Texas,” Terry said. “I think he feels the same way with Kentucky. He’s a former player, won a national championship there. There’s a lot of pride in walking into the office every day when you feel like you’re living a dream every day. I can’t speak for him, but I would think that it would be a dream for him to be the head coach at the University of Kentucky.”
Terry likes the “great spirit” Pope’s teams have.
“They’re very unselfish. They share the basketball. Very good offensively. So you have to prepare in terms of really trying to have a really good defensive mindset because they’re a team that can really score the basketball in my short time competing against his team in the Big 12,” Terry said. “But very well-coached. Really good guy, great person.”
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes has not coached against Pope like Terry and Moser have. However, he’s also confident Pope will be just fine at UK.
“I think you’ve got someone that knows what he’s into at Kentucky, what it’s about, being there, being a former player. I’ve been around Mark on the road, and I can just tell you, wonderful person,” Barnes said. “You look at his teams, he won where he has been, and I think that he quickly has put his mark on the program in terms of maybe just walking into the facilities and changing what was there.
“It could be totally different — you can send messages like that, what you want it to be. I’m sure all that’s different than it used to be, I would think. But I don’t know. But I would think that.
“But I think he’s very comfortable in who he is, and I think he’s also lived in that system. In terms of the Blue Nation, he’s been a part of it, he understands it, and he I’m sure will do a fine job there.”
Reed Sheppard had an amazing 2023-24 freshman season at Kentucky following his stellar career at North Laurel High School where he won Kentucky Mr. Basketball honors.
He became the third overall pick in the NBA Draft and started his rookie season in impressive fashion.
Former Kentucky coach Tubby Smith led UK to the 1998 national championship when Reed’s father, Jeff, was the Final Four MVP. Sheppard’s mother, Stacey, also played basketball at UK at the same time.
Smith admits he “never dreamed” that Reed Sheppard would be so good, so quick. He came into the NBA season as the second betting favorite to be named rookie of the year.
“He was the best player in the NBA summer league and one of the best players in college basketball last season,” Smith said.
Reed Sheppard left his mark at Kentucky even though then coach John Calipari brought him off the bench rather than starting him, a move Smith knows not everyone liked.
“Reed always played under control. He just never got out of control,” Smith said. “Only Reed and the Sheppard family could have accepted him not starting and playing the way he did. Not any other kid would have handled it so well.
“Most players, and parents, would have raised hell that he was not starting like some Kentucky fans were. But the Sheppards are just a special family and it certainly has worked out just fine for Reed.”
One of Sheppard’s current Houston teammates certainly agrees.
“I think he’s one of our better decision makers, passers, readers in the pick-and-rolls, and in setting the table in the offense,” Houston veteran Fred VanVleet said. “Obviously, he can space the floor. And for a rookie, he’s pretty far advanced in terms of just knowing the game and having a feel for it.”
Rhyne Howard was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft after a stellar career at Kentucky where she scored over 2,000 points, was a two-time SEC Player of the Year and was a unanimous All-American.
Now she’s also getting ready to begin her second year as an assistant coach/director of player personnel at Florida.
“She’s a tremendous young coach. She’s going to be elite in our game for a very long time, if that’s what she chooses to do,” Florida coach Kelly Rae Finley said at SEC Media Day.
The coach said Howard can be an inspiration to her players because of what she’s already done in college and continues to do in the WNBA where she’s been named an All-Star. Howard also has played in the 3×3 competition in the Olympics.
“Having somebody like her around our student-athletes that is currently living their dreams is just such a valuable asset to our coaching staff,” Finley said. “In terms of her development, she’s always been a little on the quieter side. She’s really growing into her voice, her leadership, finding solutions.
“She’s obviously a brilliant basketball player. Her ability to both jump in and do scouts and things of that nature, do a little bit of recruiting here and there, it’s been very, very fun to watch her development as a coach.”
Coach Mark Stoops has changed the culture of Kentucky football by going to eight straight bowl games, a streak that looks likely to end after the one-sided loss at Florida.
Kentucky is 3-4 and has road games left at Tennessee and Texas where the Cats will be significant underdogs. Kentucky hosts Auburn this week but is 2-10 in its last 12 SEC home games. The Cats will close the season by hosting Louisville, a team that has shown it can score points and that’s a problem for a UK offense that only has six offensive touchdowns in five SEC games.
Kentucky’s offense ranks 115th out of 134 FBS teams in scoring (20.4 points per game), 124th in pass efficiency (113.93 rating), 115th in total offense (319.9), 113th in yards per play (5.02), 111th in plays of 20 or more yards (24) and 127th in plays of 30 or more yards (seven).
Stoops said after the Florida loss that his team must play “near darn perfect” to win and Kentucky certainly has not played that way most of this season. Florida quarterback DJ Lagway completed only seven passes against UK but they were for 259 yards.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in any secondary I’ve been a part of,” Stoops said.
Stoops tried to sound positive after the Florida loss but his words are not enough to reassure UK fans.
“We’ll just stay the course. Our guys have responded and responded well at times on the road. We took a butt-kicking. Give them credit, they played very well. I have no worries about our guys falling apart or anything. We need to play better,” Stoops said after the game.
“Like I always talk to the guys about — it gets a little bit redundant, but it’s the truth — when you get knocked down and you don’t play well, you have to respond. You gotta be resilient. This is a tough league. It’s rough. Believe me, I’m very disappointed, but not defeated. We will get back to work. I want to see improvement. I know we need to play better and I promise you everybody in there cares and is going to go to work.”
Kentucky junior Otega Oweh had a lot of coaches pursuing him when he decided to leave Oklahoma but no one recruited him harder than UK’s Mark Pope.
He said Pope really has not changed a lot from the person who was recruiting him now that he’s coaching him.
“I would just say how good of a person he was recruiting me and has kept being that way,” said Oweh. “A lot of times when coaches are recruiting you, they’re always nice to you. They’re always doing these things.
“But it hasn’t changed not one bit since I got here and he started coaching me. He interacts with us, he keeps a relationship. It’s not always about basketball. It’s talk about people.”
Oweh said Pope is very inquisitive about things a lot of other coaches are not.
“He will talk to you about your day, what’s going on with you in your household. Do you have a pet? He makes sure he checks up on that pet too. It’s real, real genuine with him all the time.”
Quote of the Week: “He is putting the brand of Kentucky first in everything that he does, he understands how Kentucky works,” SEC Network analyst Daymeon Fishback on Kentucky coach Mark Pope.
Quote of the Week 2: “He needed a change in his eyes. I can’t speak directly toward it, but he seems happy when I see him, just as happy as he was when he was at the former place. But he’s still going to recruit at a high level. He’s still going to compete at a high level. He’s still going to galvanize the crowd and make great memories,” Missouri coach Dennis Yates on John Calipari going from UK to Arkansas.
Quote of the Week 3: “I knew after watching Mark at a Utah Valley State practice, he was going to be a great one. He’s a great offensive coach. He knows how important defense is, and I thought he was the perfect choice,” former UK coach Rick Pitino on current UK coach Mark Pope.