Milan Momcilovic is supposed to be one of Kentucky’s biggest offensive weapons, but through the Wildcats’ first three games, he hasn’t been able to get enough clean looks to matter the way Mark Pope wants.
That problem showed up again in Kentucky’s 89-69 loss to Kansas in the Champions Classic. Momcilovic took only seven shots, made two of them and finished with five points. For a 6-foot-9 sharpshooter who entered the season as a Preseason All-American candidate, that kind of night is a red flag.
Pope said after the game that the staff needs to do a better job putting the ball in Momcilovic’s hands.
“From a coaching perspective, we’ve got to be more creative to find ways to get him shots,” Pope said of Momcilovic in the postgame press confernce. “That’s going to be a complete team effort, and it’s going to be partly Milan’s responsibility too, and that’s how the game works.”
The issue wasn’t just volume. Momcilovic never attempted a three-pointer in the first half, then got up only three in the second half. The only one he made came on a fadeaway from the corner with Kentucky trailing by 20 and less than seven minutes left.
That’s been the story too often. There are stretches where Momcilovic goes multiple possessions without touching the ball, and getting him involved in the halfcourt has looked far harder than it should.
It’s not a brand-new problem, either. In Kentucky’s exhibition win over Texas Tech, he went 2-for-4 from deep.
That was easy to dismiss at the time, but it now looks like part of a bigger pattern. Last Friday against James Madison, he managed eight three-point attempts, but only one went down.
The numbers from Iowa State last season show why Kentucky brought him in and why this matters. Momcilovic shot 48.7 percent from deep while averaging 7.5 attempts per game. He was the best three-point shooter in all of college basketball in 2025-26, and Pope said in the offseason he wanted him shooting 10 threes per game.
Instead, he’s averaging 9.3 field goal attempts through Kentucky’s first three games. That has to climb if the Wildcats are going to get where they want to go.
Pope has already used the same language before, asking, “How can we find more creative ways to get him shots?” But the solution still hasn’t shown up. Opposing defenses are clearly locking in on Momcilovic, and Kentucky’s actions for him haven’t been consistent enough to break that pressure.
Some of that falls on Momcilovic to get open. Some of it falls on his teammates to find him.
But the first step belongs to the coaching staff, and right now Kentucky hasn’t solved the problem. When he can’t get shots within the flow of the offense, the Wildcats end up forcing things elsewhere.
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