{"id":572112,"date":"2026-01-31T03:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572112\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:24:15","slug":"kentucky-needs-denzel-aberdeen-to-continue-building-on-his-terrific-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/572112\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky needs Denzel Aberdeen to continue building on his ‘terrific month’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denzel Aberdeen<\/a> has been playing the best basketball of his career during January. Kentucky needs him to close out the month strong to regain lost momentum.<\/p>\n

Through eight games this month, all against SEC competition, Aberdeen is averaging 13.6 points and 2.9 assists in 30.4 minutes per outing as the Wildcats\u2019 fill-in point guard. He\u2019s shooting 40 percent from deep and 84.6 percent from the free-throw line during this stretch. Considering he\u2019s played out of position for most of the season, it\u2019s been impressive to see the senior guard adapt to his new role after some early ups and downs. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is definitely taking major jumps in just his comfort level with how he\u2019s playing,\u201d Head coach Mark Pope<\/a> said of Aberdeen on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Aberdeen is clearly more confident as Kentucky\u2019s new point guard than he was even a month ago. After a couple of seven-point outings to begin SEC play, he began to hit his stride. Over his next four games, all wins, he averaged 18.5 points and 2.8 assists per game, including a massive shot down the stretch against Tennessee. He settled in as a facilitator in the win over Ole Miss (6 points, 5 assists), before being one of just two Wildcats with more than five points (15 for himself) in a rough blowout loss to Vanderbilt. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis ball screen numbers are ridiculous right now,\u201d Pope said. \u201cHe\u2019s like a 1.15 points per possession as a ball screen ball handler, that\u2019s crazy. That\u2019s on high volume. His ability to score the ball has been great. I think he\u2019s had some really special moments defensively. He\u2019s got a pretty unique skill about his choice through traffic, the routes he takes, he can be really good. I think his voice is trying to emerge a little bit but he\u2019s had a terrific month for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aberdeen hasn\u2019t been a perfect player against SEC competition (specifically, he tends to hold onto the ball too long at times), but the current reality remains that Kentucky is a better team when he\u2019s on the floor than when he\u2019s not. Per CBB Analytics<\/a>, UK is a +27 in league play when he\u2019s on the floor and a -21 when he\u2019s on the bench. Kentucky\u2019s four most-used lineups in conference action all feature Aberdeen \u2014 and all of them have produced positive plus\/minus numbers. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe makes big shots,\u201d Arkansas assistant coach Kenny Payne<\/a> said of Aberdeen on Friday<\/a>. \u201cWhen he\u2019s playing well, they\u2019re a pretty good team. When he\u2019s playing well \u2014 I shouldn\u2019t say pretty good, they\u2019re an elite team \u2014 they have beat teams in our conference based off his play\u2026 He\u2019s an elite guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going into Saturday\u2019s road showdown against a talented group of Arkansas guards, the Wildcats will need another big outing from the former Florida transfer to close out the month strong.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denzel Aberdeen has been playing the best basketball of his career during January. Kentucky needs him to close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,14352],"class_list":{"0":"post-572112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denzel-aberdeen-22-dr-phillips"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115987577054261102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}