Announcement: after three seasons Kentucky head coach Mark pope announced his resignation and depart………more
There are more career starts on this coming season’s Kentucky roster than there were on John Calipari’s first six Kentucky teams (579) combined.The current Cats will have 219 more career starts on their roster than did the most-experienced team of the Calipari coaching era — Kentucky’s 2021-22 roster had 367 career starts entering that season.
To put in greater perspective just how much playing experience the 2024-25 Cats will bring into the coming season, consider:
▪ Kentucky’s 2014-15 team — which reached the Final Four with a 38-0 record — entered that season with 164 career starts on its rosUK’s 2011-12 national championship team began that campaign with 125 career starts on its roster — 71 of those supplied by one player, Darius Miller.
▪ Kentucky’s 1997-98 national championship squad — which started two seniors and three juniors — commenced that season with 164 total college starts on its roster.
▪ UK’s 1995-96 NCAA championship team — which started two seniors, two juniors and a sophomore — entered its title year with a cumulative 233 career college starts.
The 2024-25 Kentucky roster will boast nine players who have all made at least 21 career starts in college hoops. UK will have five players who have started 69 career games orThree of the 2024-25 Cats — big man Andrew Carr (112) and guards Lamont Butler (102) and Kerr Kriisa (93) — have started more than 90 career college hoops contestsSuffice to say, Pope is emphatically giving that segment of the Big Blue Nation that has been pleading for UK to field more experienced teams what it has been wanting.
In building such a veteran-laden roster, Pope has benefited from what will be the final season when super-senior players are available en masse due to the “one free COVID year” granted by the NCAA to all athletes enrolled in college during the 2020-21 school year.
Kentucky in 2024-25 will have six players using a fifth season of playing eligibility — Koby Brea, Butler, Carr, Kriisa, Jaxson Robinson and Amari Williams — on its roster more.ter.