In response to the announcement of the AIken NBA draft 2024, Mark Pope made a terrible statement.

Ansley Almonor is necessary if Mark Pope wants his club to shoot 35 threes each game.
The Kentucky Wildcats intend to set a record for the most three-pointers made per game the next season, but Mark Pope will either have to play a lot of lineups with non-shooters on the floor or bring in more shooters to his frontcourt in order to achieve that goal. Ansley Almonor, a recent transfer, provides the solution.

In an interview with Kentucky Sports Radio on Tuesday, assistant coach Cody Fueger described Mark Pope’s strategy for bringing his explosive, analytically focused attack to Lexington in 2024.

We aim to score 35 threes every game offensively, so if you miss an opportunity to score, you’ll be sitting on the sidelines. He coaches in this manner. He wants these guys to be free to follow their instincts and be given as much freedom as possible. Thus, that’s a major offensive advantage for us. Just playing the transition quickly. Fueger said to KSR, “And let these guys make plays and make reads.”

However, it would have been reasonable to wonder where Kentucky’s roster would get all that shooting until Thursday morning. Although West Virginia transfer Kerr Kriisa made 42.4% of his 144 three-point attempts for the Mountaineers and Koby Brea, who arrived from Dayton, was the best long-distance shooter in the country last season, Pope’s frontcourt was mostly made up of long rim-protectors Amari Williams and Brandon Garrison.

Almonor was a lethal spacing threat who, on catch-and-shoot jumpers, achieved an effective field goal percentage of 61%, ranking in the 89th percentile nationally. He made 44% of his shots from directly above the break, which was his preferred shooting selection, and 57.8% of his shots were from beyond the arc.

Almonor, who played for FDU when they defeated Purdue as a No. 16 seed in 2023, probably won’t be able to create individual shots, which is why Pope is hoping he will withdraw from the NBA Draft following this week’s combine. His ability to space the floor, however, will allow Kentucky to field lineups that include five deadly shooters in order to achieve its ambitious objective of 35 three-pointers per game—two more than BYU lead the nation in three-pointers made the previous season.

PG: 6’3″ Kerr Kriisa (3P%)
Otega Oweh, a 6’5″ SG (3P%: 37.7)

SF: 6′ 6″ Koby Brea (3P%: 49.8)
Ansley Almonor, PF, is 6’7″ (3P%: 39.4)
C: 6’11” Andrew Carr (3P%: 37.1%)

That would still leave Trent Noah and Travis Perry as true freshmen, along with whoever fills the final two scholarship places at UK, and Williams, Garrison, Colin Chandler, and LaMont Butler on the bench. The Wildcats have not had this amount of skill since 2015, when John Calipari was playing five-for-five hockey shifts to accommodate it. Pope will have a difficult time balancing minute allocations on this team.

Almonor was added mostly for his size and shooting ability, but he is capable of much more. He was the roll or pop man in ball screen actions last year, shooting 55% at the rim and scoring 1.02 points per possession, which was 56th percentile. Despite his lack of speed, Almonor was a proficient transition player who carved his way to the basket with long strides and body control. His ability to see openings in corners and attack them as the trailer is rather good.

Almonor, a stretch wing with the strength to stand up defensively at the four and the athleticism to survive on the perimeter, was one of the few archetypes still lacking in Pope’s motion-heavy, three-point-addicted offensive system. Although Kentucky could still need a reliable on-ball scorer, there’s no reason to think the Wildcats won’t be able to acquire the best player available given the new administration’s success in the transfer portal.