{"id":98229,"date":"2025-08-21T02:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98229\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T02:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:04:09","slug":"lowe-oweh-listed-among-college-basketballs-best-players-entering-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/98229\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowe, Oweh listed among college basketball’s best players entering 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Pope<\/a> said Otega Oweh<\/a> was ready to become the \u201ctop defensive player in the country\u201d <\/a>as a senior \u2014 but that\u2019s to be expected from a returning All-SEC talent and the expected Preseason SEC Player of the Year. <\/p>\n

Pittsburgh transfer Jaland Lowe<\/a> is the bigger wildcard, someone Kentucky needs to be elite as the starting point guard in 2025-26. Fortunately, those returns are overwhelmingly positive, too. Would you believe it if I told you he led the Wildcats in three-point shooting this summer? <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to believe me, just believe Pope.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a lightning-quick, get wherever he wants on the court, leader \u2014 vocal leader,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201c\u2026 He\u2019s an elite-level playmaker on ball screens \u2014 I mean, he can fling the ball everywhere on the court, make every pass. He was our leading three-point field goal percentage shooter in five-on-five competition this summer \u2014 just right under 42 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check and check, your 1A and 1B stars for Kentucky in Pope\u2019s second season as head coach.<\/p>\n

And when you\u2019re the co-stars for a preseason top-10 team, odds are pretty good you\u2019re among the best individual talents in the sport. That\u2019s how Isaac Trotter of CBS Sports sees it, singling out Oweh and Lowe among \u201ccollege basketball\u2019s best players\u201d \u2014 a list of \u201ctop stars, breakout picks and transfers primed to erupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breaking it down by position, Oweh was listed as the second-best \u201ctrue wing\u201d in the country, behind only No. 1 recruit and BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa. <\/p>\n

2. Otega Oweh, Kentucky<\/p>\n

\u201cOweh is just a dawg,\u201d Trotter wrote. \u201cOweh takes tough defensive assignments every night, and has turned himself into one of the premier transition scorers in college basketball. Oweh is a freight train going downhill, and he hammered 47 dunks. Not many wings can match that number.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Lowe, he came in at fifth overall in the \u201cinitiator point guard\u201d category with only Purdue\u2019s Braden Smith (No. 1), Iowa\u2019s Bennett Stirtz (No. 2), UCLA\u2019s Donovan Dent (No. 3) and Houston\u2019s Milos Uzan (No. 4) ahead. <\/p>\n

Like we saw with Lamont Butler last season, Lowe is expected to get the Coach Pope bump in his first year as a Wildcat.<\/p>\n

5. Jaland Lowe, Kentucky<\/p>\n

\u201cOther initiator point guards had better seasons than Lowe last year, but this is a bet on Mark Pope doing what Mark Pope does with lead guards,\u201d he wrote. \u201cOtega Oweh\u00a0and\u00a0Lamont Butler\u00a0posted the best offensive seasons of their careers under Pope\u2019s watchful eye, and Lowe should be up next to hit the jetpack joy ride. Lowe\u2019s talent is undeniable, both as a scorer and a playmaker. The lefty, dynamic floor general can crease defenses with slashing drives in a flash. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith a much-improved shot diet at Kentucky, Lowe should go vroom-vroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only real snub for Kentucky comes with an asterisk, you could say, knowing Jayden Quaintance \u2014 a likely top-five pick in next June\u2019s draft \u2014 will miss some time recovering from a torn ACL. He belongs at or near the top of the \u201ctrue 5\u201d category, but I\u2019ll hear the argument for holding off due to injury concerns.<\/p>\n

I will not hear that argument when he returns to live game action.<\/p>\n

Who else is missing, BBN? The impact SEC transfers, Denzel Aberdeen and Mo Dioubate? Kam Williams as a 3&D sharpshooter? Andrija Jelavic\u2019s upside as an international unknown? Could either of the top-30 rookies make a case in Jasper Johnson or Malachi Moreno? Any returners, such as Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler or Trent Noah?<\/p>\n

For now, we\u2019ll take two of the top players in the sport.<\/p>\n

Check out CBS Sports\u2019 full list here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Pope said Otega Oweh was ready to become the \u201ctop defensive player in the country\u201d as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-98229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}