There is no doubt that Mark Pope is working his butt off to fix what broke last season. He wants things badly to work, and he knows just how special Kentucky basketball is to its fans. He is currently chasing two huge names, Finley Bizjack and Zoom Diallo, to do exactly that; these guys are exactly what you want to see on a whiteboard, but on the court together? That gets tricky.
Bizjack is a (likely) future NBA player from Butler, boasting the athleticism and scoring skill needed to compete on the highest level of basketball. Diallo, on the other hand, is a six-foot-four, physically-dominant guard from Washington who can get to the rim at will and score over bigs. On paper, the two combined looks like a powerhouse backcourt. But if you watched Kentucky basketball last season (we know you did if you're reading this), you know that games aren't won on paper.
The "Shooting Wand" fallacy
Last year, the narrative was that Pope's system would magically fix broken jumpers because inefficient players would, hypothetically, take better shots with better players around them. But the numbers don't lie, and they certainly don't care about a system's reputation.
A few three point metrics tell most, if not all of this story:
- Denzel Aberdeen shot 36% from deep, rising just one percentile from his previous season at Florida
- Mo Dioubate went from 46% at Alabama (26 attempts) to 21% at Kentucky (28 attempts)
- Jaland Lowe posted a 26% clip from range in his sophomore season at Pitt, which fell to 20% in Lexington
To be fair to Lowe, he was hurt. But do we really expect those numbers to suddenly lift when Mark Pope waves his wand? Sometimes, a player just is what the back of his bubble gum card says he is.
A Stylistic Collision Course
The problem with a Bizjack/Diallo pairing isn't a lack of talent; no, it's a lack of space. Last season at Butler, Finley Bizjack shot just 42% from the field, if we're talking numbers. For the Huskies, Zoom Diallo's three point percentage came out to just 31.5%. If you put those two in the backcourt together, you have two guards who can absolutely score, but do so with relative inefficiency.
If Malachi Moreno were at the five, it would shrink the driving lanes for two guys who are best at getting to the rim. It’s the same spacing crisis that led to Kentucky’s offense cratering if Collin Chandler was locked up.
You need players who can make shots with diehard consistency. In spite of Diallo being more consistent from the field on the whole (48.9%), the two paired together don't form an especially efficient tandem. That's a worrying possibility for the BBN, and rightfully so.
History Repeats Itself
Diallo is a natural combo guard who can man either position in the backcourt, although his comforts certainly lie at point guard. Bizjack is more of an off-guard, likely sticking to the two-spot. That makes sense on the surface but, stylistically, it’s a repeat of the same mistake that last year's roster suffered.
You cannot run a modern, high-tempo offense with a backcourt that defenses can sag off of to prevent the drive. They'll leave Kentucky open again, and Pope's system will be forced into running actions it isn't built around.
I love these two players as individuals, I really do. They are tough, talented, and can be special individually. But together? I just don't know. It's a gamble that ignores everything we learned from the 2025-26 campaign.
It's really hard to "coach up" an inefficient jumper. Sometimes, shooting just isn't a player's forte, and such a player is bound to struggle in Coach Pope's offense.