Kentucky basketball positioned for 2025 March Madness success. Here's why | C.L. Brown
MILWAUKEE — Kentucky basketball players suiting up for their NCAA Tournament first-round game against Troy enter having won a combined 10 tournament games among them.
Lamont Butler, hero of San Diego State’s run to the 2023 national championship game, accounts for seven of those wins. That’s still more than the entire Wildcats’ roster combined that was bumped in the first round last season by Oakland.
UK coach Mark Pope takes an 0-2 record into the game, with both of those losses coming as a six seed at BYU, including last year’s elimination at the hands of Duquesne.
None of that will matter this time around.
Kentucky’s rotation is filled with college basketball veterans and their experience outweighs their collective tournament inexperience. Most championships over the past decades have been won by teams with veteran rosters.
UK starts four seniors and a junior and adds another senior to the rotation off the bench. It should lead to a NCAA success story for Pope.
“The beautiful thing about experience is, this game can throw so many different things at you,” Pope said. “So the more experience you have, the more you experience, the more memories you have to fall back on and be like, ‘OK, I’ve been here before.’”
Otega Oweh never played in the NCAA Tournament in his two previous seasons at Oklahoma. But if UK needs a game-winning shot, you think he’s not drawing from the times he delivered with Oklahoma?
Butler also pointed out that the Cats have been a resilient bunch.
The pattern emerged during the regular season with the injuries the Cats suffered and the unorthodox rotations Pope has had to play as a result. This team knows a bit about adversity and understands how to play through it.
“In the tournament, things are going to go wrong,” Butler said. “I feel like we’ve done a great job of bouncing back really quick from, say, we lost a game or we had a bad half. Like the next thing that we do is just great.”
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UK’s potential greatness in the Big Dance begins and ends with Butler’s availability. He will return to the lineup after playing just eight minutes in the SEC Tournament.
Butler had a left shoulder injury in the win over Oklahoma that was different than the one that caused him to miss six games into February.
Even if the protective strap he wears to protect his shoulder limits his ability to shoot at his 36% clip from 3-point range, Butler will still be a key contributor as a defensive menace and by directing the offense.
Forward Andrew Carr said the team jokingly refers to Butler as “LaMarch,” as Butler hit the game-winning shot to propel the Aztecs to the national championship game in 2023. He also helped them reach the Sweet 16 last season.
Senior forward Ansley Almonor knows what it feels like to play the David role to a Goliath. He started for Fairleigh Dickinson as it became just the second 16 seed ever to beat a No. 1 seed when the Knights beat Purdue in 2023.
Almonor, along with Butler and senior Koby Brea, is on a short list of UK players who have advanced past the first round, may have offered the best advice to the Cats in order to avoid a let down.
“I just try to tell the team that everybody here is a champion, everybody here has winning DNA,” Almonor said. “They’re gonna come out here, they’re gonna play harder and play with chip on their shoulder. So for us not to get upset like that, we gotta come out here and play with a chip on our shoulder.”
Taking the first swing before getting hit in the NCAA Tournament? That’s a veteran move, Kentucky.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball roster could mean March Madness 2025 success
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