‘Forever grateful’: Kentucky basketball seniors reflect before final game in Rupp
This basketball season hasn’t gone exactly how Denzel Aberdeen thought it would. There were more losses than he expected, the Kentucky guard said this week with a shrug, his tone making clear he wished that hadn’t been the case. “But it happens, so we’ve just got to pick it up from here.” Even in talking about those defeats, the UK senior had a smile on his face.
Aberdeen came to Lexington after three seasons with the Florida Gators — including a key role off the bench in a national championship run last year — in hopes of playing a bigger part for a blue-blood program that could accomplish something just as special. On that front, his experience with the Cats has been just as gratifying as he thought it would be. And he’s made clear that he believes this UK team is still capable of crafting a special ending. “It’s been nothing but amazing here, since I’ve been here,” Aberdeen said. “Since I stepped foot on campus, everybody treated me like family, like a brother. And I’m forever grateful for my time being here. I know it’s been only one year, but I wish I had another. But every good thing comes to an end, so I’m just happy and amazed to be here.”
His fellow senior Otega Oweh is wrapping up his second season at Kentucky after playing his first two years in college at Oklahoma and becoming one of the first commitments of the Mark Pope era as a transfer back in April 2024. Oweh has left a massive imprint on UK’s program. He was the surprise leading scorer on Pope’s first squad, an injury-riddled group that overcame adversity and became the first Kentucky team in six years to advance beyond the first week of the NCAA Tournament.
His performance as a junior led to Oweh being named the SEC preseason player of the year this past fall, and — while he likely won’t win that award amid another season filled with stars across the league — he’s played at an all-conference level and carried the Cats on numerous occasions yet again. Asked this week if he’s had time to stop and think about his place in the program, Oweh acknowledged that he had. “Just little talks at home, you know, with my family,” he said. “But I still feel like we’ve got a lot of season left, so I’m trying not to get too emotional. But it’s definitely gonna feel some type of way — you know, last home game.
But these last two years, it’s been amazing. I just hope BBN enjoyed it the way I did.” Oweh and Aberdeen’s final game in Rupp Arena is the 4 p.m. Saturday date with No. 5 Florida, then the SEC Tournament next week and the NCAA Tournament the week after that. Both players noted how quickly this season has passed, even taking into account the angst that has accompanied a lot of it.
The Cats were No. 9 in the preseason AP poll and will likely go into the postseason without a ranking at all, taking a 19-11 record into the regular-season finale against the SEC champion Gators. Amid another campaign filled with injuries — Jaland Lowe is out for the season, and neither Jayden Quaintance nor Kam Williams has played since January — Oweh and Aberdeen have been this team’s two constants. What’s happened on the court so far hasn’t been enough to satisfy their expectations.
“I just want to end it on a high note,” Oweh said. They’ll have that opportunity, and each player will undoubtedly play a major role in whatever postseason success comes Kentucky’s way over the next few weeks. It starts with what will surely be an emotional Senior Day ceremony before the game against Florida on Saturday afternoon. That will also be the final home game for Walker Horn and Zach Tow, a couple of players who joined the program as walk-ons and have helped their more celebrated teammates behind the scenes.
Oweh’s résumé is already one of the best in UK basketball history among players who spent just two seasons with the program. He surpassed 1,000 points for his Kentucky career last month and already sits third all-time in points scored by a two-year UK player. At 1,120 points going into the Florida game, Oweh is just 35 points behind Antonio Reeves and 93 shy of Bill Spivey, who tops that list. The Newark, New Jersey native has scored in double figures in all but four of his 66 games as a Wildcat (all but one this season), and he’s done that while often guarding the opposing team’s best offensive player.
“His career here — with what he’s contributed to the two teams he’s been a part of — it really is remarkable,” Pope said Thursday. “And his growth has been remarkable. Sometimes you think about the consistency, some of the markers that show his consistency, but, within that, you’ve just seen this incredible growth, because his role has changed so dramatically. And so to stay as consistent as he’s been with such a dramatically changing role, it’s really incredible. “He’s got a competitor’s heart that spills over. He’s one of the kindest, most well-spoken guys we’ve had play here. He just is a special human being, and he’s had an epic run that we’re excited to finish off in a great way.”
Aberdeen was expected to be a third starter in the backcourt alongside Oweh and Lowe, but the Cats lost Lowe, their starting point guard, to a season-ending injury, and Aberdeen has had to slide over and play the 1 as a result. It’s not his natural position or the spot he expected to play when he transferred to UK for his final season of college, but he’s done everything Pope has asked and emerged as quite the playmaker for his teammates.
Over UK’s past five games, he has 24 assists and just two turnovers in 174 minutes of play. “His fingerprints are all over everything about this year, in terms of the real challenges about playing out of position, and assuming a role he didn’t expect is such a DNA of this team,” Pope said. “And then his growth has been so much in character with the guys on this team. He’s just grown so much over the course of the season. “And making big plays. You know, we’ve been nothing short of dramatic — and so many guys have made big plays — and he’s certainly one of the lead guys in terms of making really big, dramatic plays.
And he’s had a real fearless kind of steadiness about him that I think people have seen throughout his career, and we certainly have got to enjoy it here.” For both players, it’s been a whirlwind. Aberdeen said it didn’t seem that long ago that he was helping the freshmen get settled into college life. “It went by really fast. I feel like I was just taking Braydon (Hawthorne) to Target (to buy things) for his dorm not too long ago,” he said with a laugh. “… And it’s crazy to think that we’re already in March.” What happens over these next few weeks will define how this Kentucky team is remembered. It’s not the season Oweh, Aberdeen or Pope expected back in November, but it’s not over yet.
