Noah’s playing time……last year

[Damage_inc]

I can’t even wrap my head around the roster construction this season. But I was just thinking, man Noah and Perry played a ton last year and we were good. Noah hit shots, played hard and really contributed.

one year later Noah can’t find the floor and this team is awful. Make it make sense.

 

[wildcatsincebirth]

It’s just bad coaching all around but if we are honest with ourselves Trent Noah is not an SEC caliber player. He can’t play D, he can’t create his own shot, he can’t pass very well, he’s just supposed to shoot and he’s too scared to even do it. I don’t blame pope for benching him, he passed up shots in every single game he played in even though that’s literally the only reason he is out there

what I do blame pope for is bringing Noah back at all. Just because many UK fans are dumb and obsess about players being from Kentucky does not mean that’s how you’re gonna win games.

 

[Anon1759768907]

I can’t even wrap my head around the roster construction this season. But I was just thinking, man Noah and Perry played a ton last year and we were good. Noah hit shots, played hard and really contributed.

one year later Noah can’t find the floor and this team is awful. Make it make sense.

noah should be a walk on on this team btw

 

[NoDef]

That kind of baffles me too. I know Noah isn't one of our best players, but he is one of our best shooters. Last years team was better than this and he played almost every game. We sure needed him in the game for a game tying three, but when you get no run at all, you just can't put the kid out there. Kids like that have to see the floor in at least the blowouts . As poor as we are shooting the three, they will be situations that we have no choice but to use one of our only decent shooters. We are not great defensively either way, but in he could maybe help with some spacing in low minutes. It's like Pope has totally lost all identity on what he wants offensively. We have went from shooting a lot of threes to still being bad on defense and not shooting threes. Roster construction was horrible.

He had 14 D-1 offers. Two of them SEC and one in the ACC. Mid major offers were from teams that regularly make the tournament.

 

[BlueBlood96Cat]

I can’t even wrap my head around the roster construction this season. But I was just thinking, man Noah and Perry played a ton last year and we were good. Noah hit shots, played hard and really contributed.

one year later Noah can’t find the floor and this team is awful. Make it make sense.

I’m not saying Noah should be taking a bunch of minutes from anybody but I think he should get minutes. Actually anybody should take aberdeens minutes I really am starting to not like him or Mo.

 

[MidseasonTweak]

Noah has been a garter snake, not a mamba this year. He took shots and made them against our warm-up type teams. He refused to shoot open looks against good teams this year. He belongs on the bench imo

 

[AJG-15]

last year the injuries led to opportunities for Noah, Perry and Chandler.

 

[wildcatsincebirth]

That kind of baffles me too. I know Noah isn't one of our best players, but he is one of our best shooters. Last years team was better than this and he played almost every game. We sure needed him in the game for a game tying three, but when you get no run at all, you just can't put the kid out there. Kids like that have to see the floor in at least the blowouts . As poor as we are shooting the three, they will be situations that we have no choice but to use one of our only decent shooters. We are not great defensively either way, but in he could maybe help with some spacing in low minutes.

He doesn’t shoot the ball. He passes up open shots all the time. Last time he did it was against bellarmine and pope took him out immediately and he hasn’t seen the floor since.

So there’s your answer everyone. If he doesn’t shoot he is literally useless to this team so he doesn’t play now.

 

[lookinfor8]

I’m not saying Noah should be taking a bunch of minutes from anybody but I think he should get minutes. Actually anybody should take aberdeens minutes I really am starting to not like him or Mo.

Agree on both points. In fact they should be paying us to play

 

[loublue22_rivals308424]

I assure you that Trent Noah is not the answer

 

[Dead Cat Bounce]

IMHO, Noah is a good shooter but he's not capable of creating his own shot. Last year's squad was much more potent, offensively speaking, inside the arc and out. We had ball handlers who could break down a defense, scorers who threatened at the rim, and passers who could move the ball around the court. Those capabilities created space for Noah to shoot. This year, we have so little offensive capability that teams can simply faceguard Noah and essentially neutralize him.

 

[The_Catfather]

IMHO, Noah is a good shooter but he's not capable of creating his own shot. Last year's squad was much more potent, offensively speaking, inside the arc and out. We had ball handlers who could break down a defense, scorers who threatened at the rim, and passers who could move the ball around the court. Those capabilities created space for Noah to shoot. This year, we have so little offensive capability that teams can simply faceguard Noah and essentially neutralize him.

Was thinking about this earlier and agree.

Last year's team had a stretch 4 that actually had basketball skills, a unique center who could initiate the offense and hit open men and a sniper in Brea that teams absolutely couldn't leave open. It gave a lot of freedom to Perry and Noah to play their role and get open 3s. Even when we played without Butler we had a competent offense.

This team doesn't have that luxury. Mo's essentially a garbage man, we have no shooters for teams to fear, Moreno is still raw and frankly I don't think Garrison is particularly smart. No idea why we had him trying to hit a backdoor pass with the game on the line. And him and Moreno not being able to secure a rebound after a missed free throw in crunch time was infuriating. As soon as that happened you knew we were losing the game.

 

[Kantucke_rivals]

There is no way Noah and Johnson are worse offense than what we're seeing out there right now. The writing is on the wall and when Jasper "Kentucky till I die" leaves it'll be an absolute PR nightmare for Kentucky basketball. He gave up playing with Caleb Wilson to have Pope bench him...

 

[BlueBlood96Cat]

Was thinking about this earlier and agree.

Last year's team had a stretch 4 that actually had basketball skills, a unique center who could initiate the offense and hit open men and a sniper in Brea that teams absolutely couldn't leave open. It gave a lot of freedom to Perry and Noah to play their role and get open 3s. Even when we played without Butler we had a competent offense.

This team doesn't have that luxury. Mo's essentially a garbage man, we have no shooters for teams to fear, Moreno is still raw and frankly I don't think Garrison is particularly smart. No idea why we had him trying to hit a backdoor pass with the game on the line. And him and Moreno not being able to secure a rebound after a missed free throw in crunch time was infuriating. As soon as that happened you knew we were losing the game.

I thought Mo was gonna be our garbage man as in Dennis Rodman garbage man. I didn’t know he was gonna be like trash can garbage. Mainly his attitude

 

[The_Catfather]

^I think he wanted to play on the perimeter this season and "showcase" his arsenal. Once he showed he couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, Pope parked him inside and now he's upset. He was in a better situation at Bama last year with an athletic shot-blocking big and 3-4 shooters beside him. Now he's a 6-foot-6 paint clogger.

 

[LordEgg]

We spaced right and could pass last year. Without that, kids that don’t create their own shot are useless

 

[Wildcat_in_DC]

I can’t even wrap my head around the roster construction this season. But I was just thinking, man Noah and Perry played a ton last year and we were good. Noah hit shots, played hard and really contributed.

one year later Noah can’t find the floor and this team is awful. Make it make sense.

noah making shots is a false narrative. over the final 8-9 weeks of the season noah made a total of 14 shots! dude made a little over a basket a week. he wasnt good last year but he had a stretch where he had a nose for the ball and it bounced his way so the impression was that he was good. but he wasnt....and this year when given time he was been exposed to what he is.

 

[Wildcat_in_DC]

There is no way Noah and Johnson are worse offense than what we're seeing out there right now. The writing is on the wall and when Jasper "Kentucky till I die" leaves it'll be an absolute PR nightmare for Kentucky basketball. He gave up playing with Caleb Wilson to have Pope bench him...

people have short memories....with jasper and noah on the court uk will give up close to 2.0 ppp. they are unplayable because it is literally impossible to score enough to mask their problems on defense.

 

[Damage_inc]

noah making shots is a false narrative. over the final 8-9 weeks of the season noah made a total of 14 shots! dude made a little over a basket a week. he wasnt good last year but he had a stretch where he had a nose for the ball and it bounced his way so the impression was that he was good. but he wasnt....and this year when given time he was been exposed to what he is.

I don't think Noah is a particularly good player. It's just peculiar that a middling player played more on a good team and now plays less on a bad team. A lot of middling players will seek out bad teams to play on just for the opportunity to get on the floor.

 

[UKWildcats1987]

I don't think Noah is a particularly good player. It's just peculiar that a middling player played more on a good team and now plays less on a bad team. A lot of middling players will seek out bad teams to play on just for the opportunity to get on the floor.

There was this thing called injuries last season. Did you not pay attention?

 

[The Ganner]

Tom Hart was calling it out last night that our bigs are not good passers. He was trying to soften it as "they're not selfish or unwilling" but I would say they kind of are. And Aberdeen is a black hole. Oweh was never a great passer. So we have a bunch of guys where the ball sticks, we're not having the ball movement and player movement we had last year. Last year Williams and Carr were very good and very willing passers as bigs. Robinson was a good and willing passer for an off the ball guy. So somebody like Perry or Noah could perform well in an offense with 3 or 4 other good and willing passers where the ball and the players never quit moving. They're not built for the kind of offense we run (or for the unstructured hero ball we end up with).

 

[UKBB4Ever]

It’s just bad coaching all around but if we are honest with ourselves Trent Noah is not an SEC caliber player. He can’t play D, he can’t create his own shot, he can’t pass very well, he’s just supposed to shoot and he’s too scared to even do it. I don’t blame pope for benching him, he passed up shots in every single game he played in even though that’s literally the only reason he is out there

what I do blame pope for is bringing Noah back at all. Just because many UK fans are dumb and obsess about players being from Kentucky does not mean that’s how you’re gonna win games.

While that’s mostly true the players could at least be better.

No one gets better playing for this coaching staff.

No one!!

There’s no way that every single player is uncoachable.

It’s unacceptable that players actually get worse under this coaching staff.

But let’s just say that it’s true that all of these players are just bad at basketball and can’t be coached up.

What’s the excuse for not just out working everyone?

That’s what Pitino’s first team did. Undermanned against everyone. But they outworked everyone.

Pope couldn’t take that one thing from his mentor?

 

[Wildcat_in_DC]

I don't think Noah is a particularly good player. It's just peculiar that a middling player played more on a good team and now plays less on a bad team. A lot of middling players will seek out bad teams to play on just for the opportunity to get on the floor.

against duke noah played zero minutes. against gonzaga noah played zero minutes. why? because we were healthy. against alabama in the SECT, noah played 19 minutes and he went 2-7, 4 points and we got destroyed by 29 points.

 

[Smeegs]

Noah can’t seem to find open looks with this roster.

Last year he benefited from having other shooters (like Koby Brea) drawing defenses away from him leaving him open. This year it seems like he’s always covered when he’s in (or doesn’t get the pass on the rare occasion that he is open).

There’s no real reason to play a one dimensional shooter who can’t find any decent shot opportunities.

 

[Tri-Countycat]

Noah would give us more than Chandler. Neither can guard and Noah can shoot. Jelavic would give us more that Garrison IMO.

 

[megablue]

I can’t even wrap my head around the roster construction this season. But I was just thinking, man Noah and Perry played a ton last year and we were good. Noah hit shots, played hard and really contributed.

one year later Noah can’t find the floor and this team is awful. Make it make sense.

Here are player statistics for last year and this year ... as reference:

Statistics for 2024-25

www.bigbluehistory.com

Statistics for 2025-26

www.bigbluehistory.com

 

[bigblueinsanity (the real)]

I assure you that Trent Noah is not the answer

He isnt, but he's a symptom. A symptom of poor roster construction and a staff that can't self scout or take an objective self eval.

Noah was a freaking starter. He had zero business starting. How the staff thought otherwise is amazing.

Now the flip side: with lowe back Noah should get some clock. He is a dependable shooter and we really lack that. Without lowe, we cant generate good shots for anyone so he was useless.

Mo diabate is only good against some matchups. Garrison should be getting more minutes at the 4. Kam should play 3 with noah backing him up. Aberdeen should be a reserve pg/sg. Johnson should never play. Moreno and jq should rotate.

In a vacuum, the answers really aren't hard. What makes them hard is undoubtedly some guys were promised certain roles/minutes.

 

[Wildcat_in_DC]

against MSU, UNC, Gonzaz, Indiana, and St Johns Noah is 2-7 from the floor, 1-6 from three. i dont know why people think he can make shots....

 

[Eagles_Ball_69]

He can't dribble, defend, rebound, or make shots against SEC level teams. The notion that he "hit shots" last year (as OP suggested) is just silly. He made 7 total 3s in SEC play, 4 of those coming in the Tennessee game. Take away that one game and he was 3-21 from 3 in the SEC last year. Even with that game he was 27%. If Trent was from Ohio people on here would say he sucks. He's just not good enough, and given the lack of ability of this staff to develop talent, he won't ever be.

 

[Anon1751335390]

A bulk of Noah and Perry’s minutes last year was out of necessity due to injuries.

 

[Ecthelion of the Fountain]

it would be sad (and kinda hilarious) if he hit the portal after this season.

 

[1UKCatFan]

Tom Hart was calling it out last night that our bigs are not good passers. He was trying to soften it as "they're not selfish or unwilling" but I would say they kind of are. And Aberdeen is a black hole. Oweh was never a great passer. So we have a bunch of guys where the ball sticks, we're not having the ball movement and player movement we had last year. Last year Williams and Carr were very good and very willing passers as bigs. Robinson was a good and willing passer for an off the ball guy. So somebody like Perry or Noah could perform well in an offense with 3 or 4 other good and willing passers where the ball and the players never quit moving. They're not built for the kind of offense we run (or for the unstructured hero ball we end up with).

This. Noah looked better last year because he was surrounded by better players that played as a team. This year is all "me" ball and that doesn't fit Noah's game at all.

 

[Damage_inc]

There was this thing called injuries last season. Did you not pay attention?

Yeah we've had injuries this year too. Did you not pay attention?

Butthole

 

[RedwoodHigh]

That kind of baffles me too. I know Noah isn't one of our best players, but he is one of our best shooters. Last years team was better than this and he played almost every game. We sure needed him in the game for a game tying three, but when you get no run at all, you just can't put the kid out there. Kids like that have to see the floor in at least the blowouts . As poor as we are shooting the three, they will be situations that we have no choice but to use one of our only decent shooters. We are not great defensively either way, but in he could maybe help with some spacing in low minutes. It's like Pope has totally lost all identity on what he wants offensively. We have went from shooting a lot of threes to still being bad on defense and not shooting threes. Roster construction was horrible.

He had 14 D-1 offers. Two of them SEC and one in the ACC. Mid major offers were from teams that regularly make the tournament.

 

[TFCat11]

Some fans view Noah through blue tinted glasses, but in reality, he’s a middle of the pack D2 player.
Anyone having trouble with that, knows zilch about competitive BB. Actually, less than zilch!

And no, UK was not “good” last year, in its entirety! That 8 wins against top 15 was the ONLY good thing about last season… And Calipari was finally gone, but Drew, and especially Pope, was not the answer to replace him.