Before Alex Wilkins ever took the floor for Kentucky, he had already given the fan base a jolt. The new Wildcats guard won the 3-point shooting contest at last week’s Big Blue Madness, and the noise around him has only grown louder since.
Mark Pope didn’t exactly hide how he feels about the Furman transfer at UK men’s basketball media day last Monday.
“He’s going to be special,” Pope said of the 6-foot-6, 170-pound Wilkins.
That kind of praise makes sense when you look at what Wilkins just did as a true freshman. He arrived at Furman as one of college basketball’s biggest surprises, the kind of player who seemed to keep climbing after years of being overlooked.
Wilkins, who is from Boston, not Nelson County, got caught in the cracks for a few reasons. He broke a leg in middle school.
He lost a year of high school basketball because of the COVID-19 lockdown. He also had a late growth spurt.
Put it all together, and the recruiting world missed him.
“I’ve been overlooked my whole life,” Wilkins said. “A guy like me, I just worked (my) tail off, just caught people.
Year by year by year by year, just working the gym, staying in the gym, 6 a.m. Stay in the late night, stuff like that.
So just working.”
Once he got on the floor at Furman, the production was impossible to ignore. Wilkins averaged 17.8 points and 4.7 assists and helped lead the Paladins to the NCAA Tournament. In Furman’s 82-71 loss to eventual national runner-up Connecticut in the round of 64, he was the best guard in the game, finishing with 21 points and four assists on 8-of-15 shooting.
Still, Wilkins doesn’t want his season reduced to that one night against UConn.
“That’s just one game. I mean, a lot of people only talk about the UConn game,” Wilkins said.
“All season, I kind of played high-level hoops. The (Southern Conference) is mid-major, but it’s physical.
It’s older guys. It’s guys who are going to play pro (the) next year.
It’s a lot of good guys. So, I take a lot of confidence from my play in general.
I know I can play with the best.”
Kentucky’s interest in him was about more than flash. Pope spent two seasons dealing with point-guard injuries, and when the transfer portal opened last spring, he made it clear what he wanted most.
“We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky,” Pope said on his final radio show of the 2025-26 season.
That urgency led the Wildcats to add two guards who had been primary ball-handlers at the college level last season: former Washington starter Zoom Diallo and Wilkins.
There are still questions, though, and they’re the kind that come with a guard who had a big year but not a perfect one. Wilkins shot just 32.8% from 3-point range overall at Furman.
At the same time, he found his rhythm when it mattered most. Over Furman’s final five games - three Southern Conference Tournament games and the March Madness loss to UConn - he made 15 of 30 from deep.
“I shot the ball really well at the end of the season, for sure,” Wilkins said. “That’s definitely something I’ve been building on.”
Turnovers were the other issue. Wilkins handed out 165 assists but also committed 138 turnovers. In Furman’s 75-71 overtime loss at East Tennessee State on Feb. 4, he had 11 turnovers.
“We’ve been really focused on assist-to-turnover ratio because, while, at Furman, he was a he was a high-assist-rate guy, he was also sharing the ball with the other team a lot,” Pope said. “And we prefer not to do that.”
Pope’s staff sees part of that turnover total as the byproduct of how much Wilkins had on his plate. According to kenpom.com, he ranked No. 7 in all of NCAA Division I last season in percentage of possessions used.
Wilkins says the issue was more about judgment than ball security.
“My handle’s been tight my whole life. I wouldn’t say (I need to) tighten my handle,” Wilkins said.
“I feel like my decision-making came from me being on the ball and being a freshman and not really knowing all the defensive coverages and stuff like that. Trying to force stuff in (when instead I) could just make a simple pass.
A lot of home-run plays, and I’ve kind of grown out that a little bit.”
The fit with Diallo will be one of the biggest things to watch once the season starts. Both guards are used to running the offense, and Kentucky needs them to mesh.
Diallo said sharing the floor with Wilkins “kind of instills confidence, and it also challenges you to play well together.”
For Kentucky to deliver the season its fan base is waiting for, Wilkins will likely need to keep matching the buzz that has followed him from Furman to Lexington.
“He’s really important to us,” Pope said. “You know, you have some guys that are such high-ceiling guys? He’s a high-ceiling guy.”
And Wilkins sounds ready for the spotlight.
“I got a big chip on my shoulder,” Alex Wilkins said. “(The) season gonna come real soon. We gonna see everything come to fruition.”
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