Good News:Mark Pope’s gift to the BBN is something Cats fans haven’t seen in 20 years Read more

As these words are typed, it is 79 days until the 2025-26 Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team will take the court under competitive conditions for the first time. On Oct. 24, likely preseason  Purdue will visit Rupp Arena to take on the Cats in what will be a needle-moving exhibition game. Yet months before the Wildcats men’s hoops campaign unoficially begins, Mark Pope has already assured the Big Blue Nation that it will see something this winter that Kentucky backers have not witnessed in exactly two decades. For Pope’s second season as top Cat, UK will have four homegrown products of the commonwealth of Kentucky on men’s basketball scholarship.

The presence of Trent Noah (Harlan County), Malachi Moreno (Great Crossing High School in Georgetown), Jasper Johnson (Lexington native, ex-Woodford County player) and Reece Potter (Lexington Catholic) on the UK roster gives the Wildcats four recruited, scholarship Kentuckians on the same team for the first time in 20 years

If you are among those Cats fans who believe the “UK basketball experience” is just better when there are homestate players for which to root, you should be headed toward a season to relish

On what is expected to be a roster deep with legitimate playing options, it is unclear how big a role the “homegrown four” will have for Kentucky in 2025-26.