Kentucky's official season opener provided the first real glimpse of Mark Pope's highly-touted freshman class. After the 77-51 win over Nicholls State, the head coach was beaming with pride about their contributions, particularly the growth of Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno.
Pope praises growth of freshman class after Nicholls State win
Pope highlighted a specific "huge challenge" he gave Jasper Johnson on the defensive end, an area Johnson has been working to improve. The result? A performance Pope loved.
"The one thing about Jasper, man, when you give him an assignment, he takes it seriously," Pope said. "He came into practice on Saturday with a vengeance... just determined to guard. I thought he gave us great minutes defensively."
Pope knows the offense will be there for the skilled freshman. "He's so creative offensively. He's always going to give us good stuff there," he added. "He's going to play well because he's trying to do this the way we do it... and it's going to make him look good and certainly did tonight."
He reserved similarly high praise for Malachi Moreno, who set a goal for himself that Pope clearly intends to hold him to. "Proud of Malachi Mareno uh his goal is to be a four offensive rebound a game guy and so he started off well," Pope said.
Moreno, who has already played in high-pressure exhibition environments against Purdue and Georgetown, is quickly shedding the "freshman" label. "It's funny because he's already, you know, he's only one game into his season, but he's already played three really big games," Pope observed. "And and he's just going to be a force to be reckoned with as he he becomes more and more comfortable."
Kentucky's freshman class seems to be doing exactly what Mark Pope wants and expects so far.
Drew Holbrook is an avid Kentucky fan who has been covering the Cats for over 10 years. In his free time he enjoys downtime with his family and Premier League soccer. You can find him on X here. Micah 7:7. #UptheAlbion