Weetabix, Amari Williams' childhood breakfast, fueled his performance vs. Illinois

It hasn’t been the easiest week for Amari Williams. The big man suffered a back injury in practice on Thursday, which limited him in Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament opener. Williams had 13 rebounds in the win over Troy, but just 5 points on 2-8 shooting, his back clearly affecting his ability to finish at the rim.

Mark Pope being Mark Pope, he dug deep to find a way to get his starting center feeling better ahead of Kentucky’s second-round game vs. Illinois. It started with breakfast, the most important meal of the day.

“On Friday, I had four pieces of toast for breakfast and they thought that wasn’t enough, so he asked me what I usually eat growing up and I had something called Weetabix, which is from England.”

What is Weetabix? It’s an English breakfast cereal consisting of whole-grain biscuits. Kentucky’s staff found an international store in Milwaukee and procured some of the Nottingham, England native’s childhood meal.

“It’s like Shredded Wheat — and me saying this is crazy because my parents always forced me to eat it growing up,” Williams said. “I had about three of them this morning and Coach Pope joined me too and Brandon Garrison. I feel like that helped my performance today for sure.”

It sure did. Williams finished with eight points (4-11 FG), ten rebounds, six assists, three blocks, and a steal in 26 minutes in the 84-75 win over Illinois. For the second game in a row, he threw down a massive dunk, which pushed Kentucky’s lead to 15 three minutes into the second half. Two minutes later, he followed it up with another dunk on a fastbreak.

“So, we will have mandatory team breakfast this week every morning featuring Weetabix,” Pope quipped.

What does Weetabix taste like?

“It doesn’t taste too bad. It depends on how you make it,” Williams said, quickly switching gears when Pope swatted him on the shoulder (they’re chasing Weetabix NIL deals now). “You’re right. It tastes amazing. It gives you a lot of energy throughout the day.”

Williams said the trick is to add sugar and warm milk. Pope said the warm milk was key to his first Weetabix experience.

“The Weetabix were extraordinary, actually. So it comes in a biscuit. It looks very untasteful. But then you — I learned today that you crumble it up into tiny, little things, and then you put some warm milk. The warm milk is key. I’ve never had cereal with warm milk. Shout out to Zamara, our nutrition specialist, for making that happen. And then Amari gave me permission to put some sugar on. And he was nervous. He put four packs of sugar. I put one because I put more than one, Lee Anne was going to kill me. And it was actually fantastic. I like it so much more right now than I did this morning.”

Kentucky better pack plenty of Weetabix for Indianapolis.