Kentucky's unique depth could set a playing time record

Kentucky has 14 legit ballers on the team this season. This type of depth is unlike anything college basketball has ever seen. The last time the Wildcats basked in a talent pool this deep was the platoon year of 2014-15. That was a pretty good squad, to say the least, but even that team only went 12 deep. 14 is unheard of.

Of course, 14 people create a lot of mouths to feed. Mark Pope has shown a knack for creative substitution patterns, and he’ll need to bust out a spreadsheet this year to calculate all the combination options. It is very possible that this Kentucky team could set a record for the most players to average 10 minutes or more per game.

Last season’s ‘Cats tied the record for this quirky stat with 11 players hitting the double-digit minute mark average. In fact, they almost broke it with 12, but Travis Perry finished with 9.7 minutes per game, coming up just short.

Last year’s team’s generous minute distrubution was more due to injuries than depth, but the only two former Kentucky teams to have 11 players average 10 minutes or more per game since statisticians started keeping track in 1965 were Billy Gillespie’s 2007-08 team and Tubby Smith’s 2001-02 team.

The 2025-26 Wildcats have the depth to beat this record. Not only could they get 12, but 13 isn’t out of the question, depending on how Pope manages playing time. Regardless of how many good players are on the team, there are only 200 minutes to go around each game. And we all know Otega Oweh needs to be on the court as much as possible.

As much of a kumbaya Lord Pope might be, he is going to play the best players the most. This ain’t the Pee Wee leagues where everyone gets equal time. But he is in a unique position to do something no Kentucky team has ever done, and win a lot of games in the process.