Milan Momcilovic is heading into the season at Kentucky with a shot chart that already looks absurd, and now he’s talking about pushing it even further.
Last season at Iowa State, Momcilovic put up 16.9 points per game while knocking down 48.7% of his threes on 7.5 attempts per game. That kind of efficiency is eye-catching on its own. But the real twist is that Kentucky coach Pope wants more volume from him, not less.
Momcilovic laid out that conversation recently on the UK Sports Network: “Pope was telling me he doesn’t want me to shoot 48% from three this year because he would see that as a failure because I’m not taking enough. So, he wants me to take a lot more.
Ten threes a game and bring that percentage down a little bit. Obviously, as a shooter, you care about three-point percentage, but you know he wants more volume on makes and attempts, so I don’t mind it.
Not sure what the record is for three-point makes in a year at Kentucky, but I hope to break that.”
That Kentucky record is 117 made threes, set by Jodie Meeks in the 2008-09 season. Momcilovic’s own baseline makes that number feel reachable, because he hit 136 threes last season at Iowa State.
The bigger mountain, though, is the all-time college basketball record. That mark sits at 162 made threes, shared by Steph Curry and Liberty’s Darius McGhee. If Kentucky ends up playing around 36 games, Momcilovic would need to average about 4.5 made threes per game to get there.
So the challenge is simple enough to state and massive enough to matter: Momcilovic can chase Kentucky history, and maybe even college basketball history, if the volume matches the ambition.
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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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