By LARRY VAUGHT
Despite injuries that dramatically changed lineup options for coach Mark Pope, Kentucky managed to beat eight top 15 teams last season, reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 and even beat national champion Florida.
Cameron Mills, Pope’s teammate on UK’s 1996 national championship team, says what Kentucky fans saw this year is what they should expect going forward.
“I don’t mean wins and losses, I mean the way they play, the way he coaches. When it was announced that he was coming, the very first thing I did was think about, ‘All right, what’s the difference going to be?’ And I say this with no disrespect to Coach Cal, but what I knew was coming because of who Mark is was a culture change,” said Mills.
“Again, not saying it was a bad culture under Cal, I’m saying I knew a culture change was coming because Mark is going to be himself.”
Mills said even former Pope teammates thought it was “our boy coming back” and he would have plenty of time for them.
“I mean obviously he had a job to do, but he was so laser focused this year, clearly wanting to make sure that again, because he knows the expectations of this place, clearly wanting to have a good first year,” Mills, who does radio and video work for UK basketball, said. “I mean, he was all business.
“I’m not saying he wasn’t all business when he played. But at the same time, when you’re in your 20s and practice is over you go hang out with your boys and have fun. It wasn’t that way with Mark during the season.”
Mills said he really wasn’t sure how much Pope even slept during the season because he “worked his tail off” every day leaving nothing to chance.
“He was preparing his team to win games in the NCAA Tournament but at the same time I had to be recruiting the (transfer) portal,” Mills said. “The season played out exactly how I thought it would. I actually didn’t think we would be as good as we were but the culture change that I expected, it happened even more so.”
Mills said being around the team and watching and talking to players and coaches was a “different” atmosphere from previous year.
“His players are the best recruiting tools we have right now because they’re talking about what it meant to play for this guy, and someone like me can only talk about what it was like to play with this guy. I knew that was special, but I can’t imagine what it’s like, other than just watching practice, what it’s like to play for this guy.”
Pope signed autographs and interacted with fans after most games. He bought ice cream for fans who stayed for a radio show when he didn’t have time to sign autographs. He did every press conference and radio show himself. Pope found time to do numerous local and national radio shows.
Is there any way he can keep that up at that pace next year along with the work he puts into his team?
“I mean, he just will. That’s the culture I’m talking about in part. He just gets it, and he gets it in a way that only a former player could get it,” Mills said. “I know Coach (Joe B.) Hall was here as a player. So he understood it.
“But the thing I love about Mark is that he’s always ultra positive. He is ultra believing in you, right? But everything he’s done, from the ice cream to buying gas to get people to Milwaukee (for the NCAA Tournament), that’s not Mark placating or trying to butter up the fans. That’s just Mark and that is not going to change.”
All-Americans Isabella Magnelli and Creslyn Brose were two of 11 University of Kentucky gymnasts recently named to the Winter SEC Academic Honor Roll based on grades from the 2024 spring, summer, and fall terms. A student-athlete must have a 3.0 grade-point average for the preceding academic year or a cumulative 3.0 GPA to be named to the list.
Kentucky gymnastics coach Tim Garrison was not surprised by the honor Magnelli, a senior, and Brose, a sophomore, received, one week after competing in the NCAA Gymnastics Championship.
“It means a lot to help the way they approach life and all they do. They do athletics at a high level, work in the community at a high level, and they do academics at a high level,” Garrison said. “Everything they do is just fantastic.”
Other gymnasts who earned SEC academic honors were Hailey Davis, Cadence Gormley, Kaila Lawerence, Sharon Lee, Jillian Procasky, Anna Riegert, Isabella Rivelli, Delaynee Rodriguez and Makenzie Wilson.
Garrison said the team’s overall grade-point average is usually between 3.6 and 3.8.
“A high GPA is not out of the norm for our team. I’m not surprised at all at what they do,” he said. “We want them to be bright and that tends to be the type of athlete we target. It’s the type of people we target and they come here determined, dedicated and committed to the academic side as well as the athletics side.”
He was proud of the way Magnelli and Brose competed as individuals in the national championship after UK’s team was eliminated in the regional final.
“It’s a different environment. They had to join a different team and just rotate and were at the back end of the lineup,” Garrison said. “You get thrown a huge curveball on the biggest stage of our sport but they were calm and joyful. They performed exceptionally well and everything I was expecting they did.”
Brose was the last gymnast to compete and had to ride a stationary bike at times to stay ready when her time to compete came.
“But it is not easy. Standing around the whole meet can have an impact on you,” Garrison said. “With Creslyn, being the last person up elevated her performance. She wants nothing else going on and all the focus on her when she competes. I wish the TV broadcast had shown her performance but I get all the drama going on with the national team championship. But she did great.”
Pitt transfer Jaland Lowe and his father, Marland, feel like they have an excellent understanding of what Kentucky basketball is about because of what the current UK coaching staff has told them along with numerous UK connections Marland Lowe has made during his 30 years working with various players and teams. However, they know they still may not be prepared for what life is really like as a UK basketball player.
“It’s one thing to hear it on the phone, so you get a good feeling about it, but to be honest with you, until you actually — we get there and we see it ourselves, it doesn’t really sink in to that level,” Marland Lowe said. “When you get a chance to look at certain videos and certain clips of things in the way that the fan base is and the support, you see it.
“But then, it’s one thing to be in the middle of it yourself. So we’re looking forward to it. I mean, we’re excited about it — Jaland is primarily — and we’re looking forward to it.”
Marland Lowe, a former college player, stopped playing one-on-one against Jaland when he was in the seventh grade.
“I had to turn into a bully against him and just start bullying him around a little bit to get to the rim, My fast twitch wasn’t as good as it used to be, so defensively I wasn’t about to be moving back and forth with him a whole lot,” the UK point guard’s father said. “He’d score a couple of times and after a while, I had to turn into old school Charles Barkley on him and just put him at the rim and that was that.
“But we still talk about basketball all the time. He’ll text me, ask me about the games on (TV) and we’re going back and forth with texts. We talk all the time about it or will go through text a whole lot.”
Kentucky has added five receivers via the transfer portal for next season but true freshman DJ Miller of St. Louis made a positive impact during spring practice. The 6-3, 197-pound Miller picked UK over Tennessee and Mississippi.
He was a four-star prospect who had 109 catches for 1,703 yards and 18 scores in 33 high school games. He played on Class 5A state championship teams the last two seasons and had 71 catches for 1,032 yards and eight touchdowns in 11 games in 2024.
“He’s a long, tall guy that can really run,” UK receivers coach L’Damian Washington said. “He catches the ball really well. He had a really good spring. All those freshmen – Miller, (Montavin) Quisenberry and (Preston) Bowman – had huge spring practices and really got me excited.”
Washington says not to overlook Fred Farrier, who transferred to UK last year after three seasons at UAB. The former Franklin County star had 13 catches for 126 yards in 12 games at UK last season.
“Fred has put in the work. He’s been consistent. He’s a coach’s son, and he plays like it and he’s a tough competitor,” Washington said. “He’s somebody who you can count on to go out and make plays.”
The receivers coach also liked the personal struggles that sophomore David Washington had to overcome during spring practice.
‘To see his growth and to see him continue to persevere and just show up daily was impressive. He found out probably right before the spring that I was going to move him to X. He went to X and he hadn’t really been there but that just shows you who he is as a person,” the UK assistant coach said. “He was ready for his moment, and he had a really good spring .”
Washington is in his first year coaching at UK and is still trying to figure out the playing rotation for next season.
“It’s a room with a lot of guys, including myself, that has a lot to prove. To be honest with you, I’m excited about the challenge,” Washington said. “I’m excited about trying to continue every day to show that group exactly what it looks like to be successful in the SEC.
“I think that’s the good thing in our group that we do have a lot of guys that have a lot to prove. We’re all up for the task, or we better be. I know you guys want to possess the rock (football) but they have to also show they can do other things to get that chance.”
Quote of the Week: “A real surprise to me at the last moment was talented Travis Perry of Kentucky entering the transfer portal. Kentucky, according to many, has brought in the best new PTERS (prime timers) from the portal plus from Croatia & high school — simply CATS are loaded with multi talents,” ESPN analyst Dick Vitale on Kentucky’s 2025-26 basketball roster.
Quote of the Week 2: “He is a lockdown defender who can turn into a double-digit scorer in Mark Pope’s system. Really like the get for Kentucky. A rising senior who brings high-level winning experience and toughness to Lexington,” John Fanta, the Field of 68 and NBC Sports/Fox Sports host, on Florida’s Denzel Aberdeen transferring to Kentucky.
Quote of the Week 3: “I am just looking at it coming together more and more. It seems like Mark and his staff puts together another surprise, another acquisition to get us all excited. I mean, next year looks like it is going to be awesome,” UK Radio Network analyst Jack Givens on Mark Pope’s recruiting during an appearance on The Leach Report.