Kentucky’s offseason search for creators in the transfer portal brought in a major one in Alex Wilkins, and Mark Pope clearly expects the Furman transfer to matter right away.
Wilkins, who played point guard last season, is moving into the two-guard spot next to Zoom Diallo in a backcourt that Pope describes as a two-lead-guard setup. The idea is simple: let both guards handle point duties at different times and keep the offense moving with interchangeable playmakers.
That fits Wilkins’ game. He averaged 17.8 points last season and logged plenty of 20-point outings, including a big one against UConn in the NCAA Tournament. In that game, he scored 21 points and hit 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
Pope didn’t hide his excitement about what Wilkins can become in Lexington.
"He's really important to us," Pope said of Wilkins. "You have some guys that are such high ceiling guys, and he's a high ceiling guy.
What he's done over the course of the summer, we've been really focused on his two-point field goal percentage. We've been really focused on his assist-to-turnover ratio because while he was a high assist rate guy, he was also sharing the ball with the other team a lot, and we prefer not to do that.
And so he was a 13-to-4 assist-to-turnover ratio last week in all of our live play, which I'm really excited about. He shot 56 percent from two last week alone, and so those numbers are great, and they've really grown through the course of summer because that's not where it was in the beginning of the summer.
Sometimes it's hard to be a decision maker when you have so many options."
Wilkins sees the fit too. He said he and Diallo bring a lot of the same tools, but also enough differences to make the pairing work.
"We both do so many similar things, and we both do so many different things," Wilkins said of he and Diallo. "We've been getting really close.
I mean, that's my guy. So it's been really cool just to get to know him off the court.
But on the court, I mean, he does everything. We both can pass the ball.
We both can shoot the ball. Both can drive the ball.
He just does everything. He creates so much double gaps and creates so much openness for me.
So I shot a lot of catch and shoot shots, and he's got a lot of catch and shoot shots. Our dynamicness just comes from our competitiveness."
For Kentucky, that kind of guard tandem is exactly the sort of thing Pope wants, and Wilkins looks positioned to be a big part of it.
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Diallo also brings a reputation that should resonate with Wildcats fans beyond the buzzwords. His former high school coach pointed to his winning mentality and competitiveness as defining traits, the sort of edge Kentucky hopes will show up when games tighten up and the arena starts to sway. The bigger question now is how quickly that mindset translates once the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]
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Kentucky Is Making A Serious Push For A Class-Changing Guard
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The list of contenders is still crowded, with Louisville drawing particular notice as the in-state battle starts to take shape around him. Kentucky has already done enough to stay relevant deep into the process, but the next steps in Alstons recruitment will say plenty about just how real the Wildcats push is as this race moves toward a decision. [Read more 🡒]