If anyone says they know what this Kentucky basketball team is going to do in SEC play, they’re either a die-hard fan or a die-hard hater.
The Wildcats’ full roster played together for 20 minutes and seven seconds, to be exact, during their 13-game nonconference portion of the schedule that concluded Tuesday with a 99-85 win over Bellarmine.
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Granted, the SEC won’t be as difficult to navigate as it was last season, when four of its teams finished ranked in the top 10; Auburn and eventual national champion Florida earned No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. There are no league teams ranked in the current top 10.
After Kentucky got embarrassed in its first four games against top-notch opponents, including a 35-point blowout loss to Gonzaga, the Cats are trending in the right direction.
There’s not enough evidence to say the Cats can compete when it’s still too hard to even predict who’s available to play.
There’s not enough evidence to say the Cats can’t compete, especially if all goes well and Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance stay healthy the remainder of the season.
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The sample size and competition of UK’s best wins — over Indiana and St. John’s — may not even hold up as good wins when those schools play through their respective league schedules.
But UK coach Mark Pope has seen enough to believe his team can tap into its great potential.
“We have a little vision of what we can be in a short time, and I think we’re excited about it,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Cats played without Lowe again out of precaution to let him “heal up a little bit more” after he finished Saturday’s St. John’s game with soreness. It marked the seventh game he’s missed since transferring from Pitt.
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Lowe, the only true point guard on UK’s roster, played just seven seconds in the first half of their win over the Red Storm before tweaking his right shoulder injury and did not play again until the second half.
The Cats looked formidable in that second half, as Lowe led the offense and Quaintance had an impressive season debut after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee while playing last season at Arizona State.
Quaintance had no impact against the Knights, scoring four points and grabbing two rebounds in eight minutes.
But Kentucky got 45 points from its bench led by a career-high 26 points from Kam Williams and 11 points from Jasper Johnson. It was just the third game in double figures for Williams and Johnson.
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Williams has struggled from 3-point range this season after shooting 39.7% last season at Tulane. He entered shooting 23% for the Cats with just nine made 3s.
He nearly doubled that against a zone defense by the Knights, going 8 for 10 from behind the arc.
Those are the kind of flashes from role players that Kentucky has seen all season against opponents in Quads 3 and 4 of the NCAA Net Rankings. But in five games against Quad 1 teams, the Cats have shot 24% from 3 and rank 89th in adjusted offense according to BartTorvik.com.
Those are the kind of questions UK has to answer beginning with its trip to Tuscaloosa to start 2026.
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Most teams have forged an identity, but Pope is still trying to figure theirs out. But he did take something out of their modest four-game winning streak since the Gonzaga loss.
“It gives you confidence as a coach when things don’t go right and guys respond the way you want them to,” Pope said. “In the long run, I think that’s pretty powerful.”
Just how powerful remains a mystery.
Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky vs Bellarmine game shows UK basketball team is still mystery
