After eight weeks of summer practice, Mark Pope gave his Kentucky Wildcats some time off before the fall semester begins later this month. But he’s having trouble keeping all of his players out of the Joe Craft Center practice gym, even while conducting an interview in his office right above the court. “We tried to […]
After eight weeks of summer practice, Mark Pope gave his Kentucky Wildcats some time off before the fall semester begins later this month. But he’s having trouble keeping all of his players out of the Joe Craft Center practice gym, even while conducting an interview in his office right above the court.
“We tried to kick everybody off campus. To try to get everybody off campus to go home and refresh.” Pope said earlier this week on the Eye on College Basketball with Matt Norlander. “And then I’m sitting here in the office, and Denzel Aberdeen is down there in a full sweat getting a ton of work done. Reece Potter is out there getting shots.
“I mean, you think about DA. He’s got a national championship ring on his finger, and in our one week off, where we’ve told these guys they’re banned from the gym, these guys are still breaking in. That’s the type of group we have.”
This shouldn’t be too shocking to hear. If anyone knows what it takes to win at this level, it’s Aberdeen. After improving his individual game across all three seasons at Florida, capped with a national championship victory as a junior back in the spring, he transferred to Kentucky for a new challenge in what will be his final college run. It’s also nice to see Potter, a seven-footer coming over from a lower-level program in Miami (OH), embracing the grind, too.
Norlander did push back a touch, asking Pope how these guys are still able to get into the practice gym against the coach’s orders. For one, Pope is confident his players will still dedicate at least a few days off from working out during this break. But secondly, he’s not going to tell a group of players hungry to get better that they can’t eat, especially when it comes to someone like Aberdeen.
“Denzel, in the gym right now. Winner, winner, winner,” Pope said when asked to quickly describe Aberdeen. “He’s just a winner. He’s got a championship ring, man. That’s hard to get. He’s incredible.”
A seasoned super athlete at 6-foot-5 with a 42-inch vertical, Aberdeen expects to play a significant role for the Wildcats in 2025-26, potentially as a starter. He averaged 7.7 points in 19.8 minutes per outing last season off the bench on a loaded Gators’ squad. But when given starter minutes, he stood out: 14.4 points, 2.6 assists, and 2.4 rebounds in 29.8 minutes per outing while shooting 42.9 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from deep across five games as a starter against SEC foes.
If Aberdeen can put up comparable numbers in his role at Kentucky, all those extra hours in the gym will not only pay off for him as an individual but also for the Wildcats’ chances of making a deep NCAA Tournament run.
Category: General Sports
