With Jayden Quaintance in the fold, Kentucky appears to have found an identity

One of the buzzwords surrounding this Kentucky men’s basketball team early in the season has been identity, or more specifically, the lack thereof.

Last season’s group had an obvious identity. Made up of mostly veteran transfer portal additions from smaller schools, Kentucky was going to do whatever it could to outscore and outshoot the opponent, using plenty of actions to free up shooters and find backdoor cutters. The result was a Sweet 16 bid and a ton of ranked wins.

Going into year two under Mark Pope, it was expected that the Wildcats would try to replicate that identity, but with a little bit more athleticism, physicality, and depth to boot.

Through the first nine games of the season, that was clearly not the case. Kentucky got off to a 5-4 start with all four losses coming against ranked teams. Three-point shooting and clean offense were mostly nonexistent against the good teams. There was more physicality and athleticism, but it wasn’t translating on either side of the floor. Effort was called into question.

Kentucky received a wake-up call during a 35-point loss to Gonzaga on Dec. 5. The Big Blue Nation booed their team off the floor in Nashville. It was an embarrassing effort all-around for the ‘Cats. But Pope’s message since then has gotten through. And it appears as though he’s leaned into what this team is good at instead of trying to make it into something that it’s not.

“I think Mark did a brilliant thing,” St. John’s Rick Pitino said following Kentucky’s win over his squad on Saturday in Atlanta. “He came into the season thinking he had this great shooting team. And it’s obvious that’s probably just an average shooting team. He said I’m gonna change the whole mindset. We’re gonna be a physical team, we’re gonna be a tough team, and they totally changed their personality of who they are. And I think that’s a brilliant move by Mark.”

Since losing to Gonzaga, Kentucky has beaten NC Central 103-67, Indiana 72-60, and now No. 22 St. John’s 78-66. UK shot the ball well against an inferior opponent in NC Central, but relied on defense, physicality, pushing the ball, and getting to the line to take down the Hoosiers and Red Storm. In the win over St. John’s, Kentucky took that approach to another level with Jaland Lowe setting the pace and Jayden Quaintance, making his season debut, locking down the defense.

It’s been Quaintance, in particular, who has helped Kentucky finally appear to find its identity since being more and more involved in practice over the last couple of weeks. He had 10 points, eight rebounds, and two blocks in 17 minutes against St. John’s after being sidelined for the last nine months while recovering from an ACL tear.

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“I think seeing these guys every day, especially a guy like Jayden, they fight every day,” Lowe said. “And that’s just our identity. We fight. We’re a tough group.”

“He’s one of the main people that’s gonna help us with our identity, which is being physical, getting stops,” Otega Oweh said of Quaintance. “When we double down and we have JQ out there, we’re a really good defensive team. The energy that he brings is just huge.”

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Oweh is another physical player who rebounds and makes plays on defense. Mo Dioubate is even more physical and an even more aggressive rebounder/defender. He returned against Indiana after missing five games due to injury. Lowe isn’t the biggest or strongest guy on the floor, but you can’t deny his fight. He played just seven seconds in the first half against St. John’s after (once again) re-injuring his non-shooting shoulder, only to return and play his best basketball of the season in the second half.

Put them all together, along with the complementary pieces around them, and you can see the vision of how this group wins games moving forward.

What we saw from Kentucky as a whole in that second half, Oweh believes, is what this team’s identity has to be the rest of the season. After halftime, UK shot 14-16 from the free-throw line, outrebounded St. John’s by eight, scored 12 more points in the paint, and held the Red Storm to just 8-23 shooting. Kentucky only shot 4-16 from deep for the game and went 3-15 from deep against Indiana. Both ended in wins for the ‘Cats. KenPom now ranks UK as the 14th-best defense in the country.

Pope said in the postgame press conference that he still believes his team can reach a higher level offensively. Kam Williams hitting a pair of triples in the second half against St. John’s was massive, but in general, defense and physicality are leading to victories right now for the ‘Cats. If the offense does eventually come around, there will be a good basketball team in Lexington.