No. 23 Kentucky returns to action on Friday when it hosts James Madison in Lexington, Ky., and while the Wildcats easily won their season opener on Tuesday, coach Mark Pope wants to see less “slippage” from his team.
The Wildcats beat Manhattan 85-57, controlling the game after starting 4-for-12 from the floor in the first eight minutes. But even as Kentucky led big, there was a time when Pope called a timeout in the closing minutes to express his displeasure after what he felt was a stretch with too many several careless turnovers.
Pope’s team led by as much as 39 with five minutes remaining before Manhattan finished with a 13-2 run. The Wildcats also committed 14 turnovers, one more than the Jaspers.
“For us right now, we are a young team and we are a team with a really high ceiling,” Pope said. “We are not even close to it right now. We cannot waste a possession, and so, for us to be cavalier with possessions in the second half is not acceptable here. It never will be.”
Three of the six transfers Kentucky landed in the offseason scored in double figures Tuesday. Milan Momcilovic led the Wildcats with 24 points, which ranks fifth in school history for a player making his debut. The top Division I 3-point shooter last season at Iowa State went 6-for-9 from distance in the win. Alex Wilkins, another transfer, finished with 11 points and five assists. The Furman transfer also had a career-best seven steals, one off the school record held by four players.
Zoom Diallo, who spent the previous two seasons at Washington, added 12 points.
James Madison lost its season opener, falling 86-77 at home to Miami (Ohio) Monday. The Dukes led by six at halftime but committed 10 of their 12 turnovers in the second half, as Miami put up 51 points over the final 20 minutes to claim the victory.
Miami scored 16 of its 20 points off turnovers in the second half.
Coach Preston Spradlin’s 15-player roster features 13 newcomers.
“We’ve got a brand new team that (has) everybody in a new role,” Spradlin said. “Not one guy’s in the same role that they were in last year on whichever roster they played, and so there’s going to be some growing pains with that.”
Paul Jones III came off the bench to score 14 for James Madison, which got 11 apiece from Adrian Myers, K.J. Windham and Ace Meeks.
One of the players Spradlin had to replace was Justin McBride, who transferred to Kentucky. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 15.3 points and 5.6 rebounds last season to earn a spot on the All-Sun Belt third team. He came off the bench to score three points in 16 minutes in his Kentucky debut.
This game will be a homecoming for Spradlin, who was born in Pikeville, Ky., about 140 miles southeast of Lexington. He was part of John Calipari’s staff at Kentucky from 2009 to 2014 before becoming an assistant coach at Morehead State, where he was promoted to head coach in December 2016 after then-coach Sean Woods resigned.
Spradlin took the James Madison job in 2024 after leading Morehead State to two NCAA Tournament bids and an NIT appearance in his final four seasons at the eastern Kentucky school.