Mark Pope is betting big on Milan Momcilovic, and the strange part is that the bet starts with fewer made threes.
That sounds backward for a player who just shot 48.7% from deep last season, but it’s exactly the point. According to Momcilovic, Pope isn’t chasing another eye-popping efficiency number. He wants volume, and he wants plenty of it.
In an interview with UK Sports Network, Momcilovic laid out the thinking plainly.
“Pope was telling me he doesn’t want me shooting 48% from three this year - he’d see it as a failure because it would mean I wasn’t taking enough," Momcilovic explained. "He wants me taking a lot more, 10 threes a game, and take that percentage down a little bit.”
That idea makes a lot more sense once you look at what Kentucky is trying to build around him. Momcilovic said he feels ready to do what he did last season, only better.
“"I feel like I can do the same thing this year as last year, but even better,” Momcilovic said.
The math behind it is simple enough. Momcilovic attempted 7.5 threes per game during his junior season at Iowa State.
If that climbs to 10 attempts a night and he still hits four of them, Kentucky is getting 12 points from beyond the arc every game from its top shooter. Last season, Momcilovic made eight threes in four games, so four made triples would be a strong baseline for what Pope seems to be asking for.
And that’s before you get to the other parts of Momcilovic’s game. His post fade, as the source material puts it, is nasty. He also won’t be carrying the load alone, which matters when a team is built to spray the floor and punish defenses for overcommitting.
Momcilovic pointed to the backcourt as a major reason that setup can work.
“We have a lot of talent on this team... Obviously, it starts with the guards.
I think we have elite guards that can play-make, they can score, they can shoot. That’s really important."
That group includes Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins, the two players on Kentucky who have assist rates of at least 30%. Kentucky is one of only two teams in the country with that distinction, and that kind of playmaking should make life easier for Momcilovic on the perimeter.
Pope’s plan is aggressive, maybe even a little wild on the surface. He’s asking his offense to lean heavily on a player who figures to be the focal point of every opposing defense it sees this season.
But that’s the job. Pope brought him to Lexington for this exact kind of role, and in a year that matters for the coach, Momcilovic looks like the right player to carry the load.
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Milan Momcilovic has barely settled into Kentucky, and he is already getting singled out as one of the SECs most intriguing newcomers. CBS Sports Jon Rothstein put the transfer on his All-SEC preseason first team, a nod that stands out because he is the only new face on the list and because the Wildcats are expected to lean on his shooting right away under Mark Pope.
The fit is obvious enough: Kentucky wants Momcilovic to be the offenses top perimeter weapon, the kind of player defenses have to chase off the line from the opening tip. If the volume climbs the way the Wildcats hope, it would give Pope a defined long-range threat to build around and add another layer to a roster that still has to prove how dangerous it can be in SEC play. [Read more 🡒]
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Minchey also comes with a bit of unfinished business. He was close at Notre Dame, where he narrowly missed out on winning the starting job, and now he gets the chance to reset in an offense designed by coaches with a growing reputation for developing quarterbacks. Kentucky does not need him to be a finished product on day one, but it does need him to be part of the reason fans start believing this group can be different. [Read more 🡒]