Much has been made of the roster that Mark Pope has put together for the Kentucky Wildcats this season. It’s loaded with talent, and some have argued, too much talent. With the return of Otega Oweh and Brandon Garrison, the addition of Jayden Quaintance, Jaland Lowe, Kam Williams, and Mouhamed Dioubate among others to go with a solid Freshman class, the Cats have a lot of players with only so many minutes to go around.
Some analysts have questioned just how Pope will keep everyone happy this season, but so far, the players have indicated that it won’t be a problem. Jaland Lowe told The Field of 68:
It’s a bunch of selfless guys, and it’s all super talented. When you have a lot of really talented guys, they don’t seem to mesh well together because of egos and people wanting to be the man, but with the team we have right now, it’s a collective effort of wanting to win.
Otega Oweh expressed similar thoughts:
We’re super deep. We can do a platoon sub. We can go from one all the way to 13. We’re super deep.
Kentucky rode a platoon system to a nearly undefeated system a decade ago, so it can work if the players buy into it. It sounds like the leaders on the team have.
Fans will have to wait and see just what the rotation is when the season starts. Pope hasn’t indicated anything yet, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them go deep into the bench. Can it work? The players seem to think so.