LIVE UPDATES: 2025 Kentucky Basketball Pro Day

— The White Team tonight was Jaland Lowe, Denzel Abderdeen, Malachi Moreno, Mo Dioubate, Trent Noah, and Braydon Hawthorne. The Blue Team was Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler, Reece Potter, Jasper Johnson, Andrija Jelavic, and Kam Williams. Otega Oweh and Jayden Quaintance did not participate in the 5-on-5 scrimmaging.

Mark Pope said those have been the teams for scrimmages the last five practices, and he’s been experimenting with “stacking” teams in hopes of predicting the outcomes, which is proving difficult because of their depth. Pope said the blue team has dominated the last four days, but the white team got its first win today.

“Man, we got a lot of competitive guys. We have so many little pieces that we can tweak. It’s just a matter of getting to them, the little things we can try. This can be an incredibly fun team to coach.

“What’s been fun for me is, it’s been fun and really challenging. Usually, I can stack a team and know the outcome. And I’ve tried for the last five days, I’ve tried to stack a team and get the predicted outcome in practice, and I can’t. I’ve actually talked to the guys about that, like, we tried to trick it up and stack it, and who’s playing? Well, let’s put them all together, and then, for sure, the other team raised up. This is a team of great depth and great competitive spirit. I can’t wait. Like, it is such a joy to coach this group.”

— Lots of talk about “chasing growth.” Pope mentioned Jasper Johnson’s quote from Media Day about iron sharpening iron, which made him flash back to his playing days.

“That was my experience here. That was my experience in Kentucky in such a huge way. We’ve talked about this for 30 years, our practices were so much harder than games, almost with very few exceptions, and we felt like our second unit — and I say this because I was in the second unit — it felt like our second unit probably could have been a final national championship team.”

— Pope said this team loves playing and is so competitive that he wanted to call a practice early last week because the team was struggling with a transition drill, but the players wouldn’t let him.

“I tried to call it, the guys went, ‘No, no, no, no, we got it. We’ve got to finish this. We got to.’ I love it. I love it. I love it. It’s just, we have so many guys bringing that juice.”

— Pope mentioned Denzel Aberdeen, Mo Dioubate, and Collin Chandler as the ringleaders when it comes to competitive spirit. He also mentioned some specific numbers that show how Aberdeen has progressed since transferring to Kentucky from Florida, where he won a national championship.

“He’s at a 1.18 points for possession right now, which is a big jump from where he was at Florida. He’s shooting 47% from three in our first two and a half weeks of practice. He’s actually improving his two-point percentage. His assist-to-turnover ratio is taking a massive jump this summer. He was in the 25, 26, 27%, now he’s down in the low teens, you know, to 11, 12, 13% so he is really growing as a player, but he’s a dangerous, dangerous, dangerous player. He’s really skilled.”

— Pope is happy the guys are getting the feedback on how to improve their games for the pros, but Pope being Pope, it also gives him and the staff more data to work with.

“It’s a way for us to kind of give one more data point to how we’re trying to grow and develop our guys. And it’s an incredible experience for our guys to, yet again, have a chance to be in the gym and be undistractable, to be focused on what they’re doing right now, and to learn that skill of not being distracted by anything else going on around them.”

It was also cool to see the entire team still on the floor working on their shots as Pope spoke. This team clearly loves to play basketball. I love watching them do it, too.

What happens when you make a mistake at HMC? You gotta hit the stairs. That was the reality for the newcomer from Croatia, who ran all the way up to the top and touched the wall before getting back to the floor and jumping back in drills.

The good news? Jelavic has looked awesome overall, making shots and showing off his versatility as a swing four.

A five-star watching his future teammates at Historic Memorial Coliseum? Deron Rippey Jr., the nation’s No. 2 point guard in 2026, is in attendance watching Pro Day. He’s in town for his official visit, the program’s top target at his position.

NC State and Tennessee are the other top contenders to land his commitment.

How about a surprise to get Pro Day rolling? Jayden Quaintance, just seven months removed from surgery to repair a torn ACL, is going through drills in front of NBA scouts. He’s not going crazy out there, but it’s still our first look at the future lottery pick knocking down shots and dunking the ball with some light running and jumping. Mark Pope said he was “breaking every record known to humankind” in his recovery, and this is certainly a sign of that.

The 6-11, 255-pound sophomore is moving pretty well ahead of his Kentucky debut — whenever that is.