Basketball Cats Bonding, Learning in Summer Practice
The Kentucky men’s basketball team has made its way to campus and is in the process of becoming a “team”. The challenge for new UK head coach Mark Pope is to bring together an entirely new group of players and form them into his first Kentucky squad.
On Thursday, three of those Cats met the media and they discussed the ways that the team has been going about bonding with one another.
Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr believes that the Cats all being in the Wildcat Coal Lodge has been key.
“The lodge has been awesome for us,” Carr said. “We play a lot of ping pong and pool. Collin Chandler is probably, by far, the best ping pong player. We’ve gone bowling a couple of times. We’ve gone golfing with some of the guys. You try to find things that you can relate to with everybody. Try to be able to hang out and meet people where they’re at with their interests.”
Carr believes that the team getting to know each other outside of basketball is very important.
“It starts off the court, but it comes on the court as well as we go throughout the summer,” Carr said. “I’m super excited to be able to be able to build with these guys these next couple of weeks.”
Oklahoma transfer Otega Oweh has been pleased with how the “new” Kentucky team has come together so quickly.
“It’s funny, you would think it would be more hectic or chaotic, but it’s really been smooth,” Oweh said. “We’re all older guys, so we’ve been through this whole summer session so we know what to expect. It’s really been just focused on getting better and just playing the best we can.”
Oweh likes how the team is bonding off the court as well.
“We’re always doing stuff together,” Oweh said. “We all live in the lodge so we play pool, ping pong, after practice in the locker room watching TV. We have a group chat, so we’re always together, really.”
As for Coach Pope’s system, all of the players are excited to be part of it.
“I think it will be really, really cool to be able to play super-fast and have the freedom to be as aggressive as early as possible in the clock,” Carr said. “We always talk about getting the ball over (half) court in the first three seconds (of the shot clock). That’s a really fun way to play. And not many coaches are telling you, ‘If you don’t shoot the ball, you’re going sit next to me.’ So, it’s a lot of fun.”
“It’s a great system. It’s different, for sure,” Oweh said. “I don’t think a lot of teams in the country play that way. So, I feel like we have the upper hand when it comes to that.”
Fairleigh Dickinson transfer Ansley Almonor believes that the Cats will be hard to defend in their new style of play.
“It gets so tiring,” Almonor said. “I don’t know how these teams are going to try to defend us all game long. Especially the way Coach (Pope) wants to play, so fast. It’s going to be tough for these teams to try and keep up with us, for sure.”
Putting together an entirely new group would seem to be a challenge for anyone. But Pope and the Cats seem to be handling it very well.
