Lamont Butler presented walk-on Zach Tow with his first Kentucky jersey ahead of LSU win

On a night meant to recognize Kentucky’s many graduating seniors, it was a walk-on underclassman who received the greatest honor of the evening — and it was all because of his teammate’s leadership.

Zach Tow is a junior walk-on for the Wildcats. He applied for open tryouts back in the offseason and showed enough that head coach Mark Pope decided he was worth keeping around. But he’s essentially been on a series of one-day contracts since then. Tow has been as much a part of the team as the rest of the scholarship players, just without the on-court action and the fanbase recognition that comes with it.

“Zach Tow, fun story,” Pope told Tom Leach on postgame radio following the Wildcats’ dominant 95-64 win over LSU. “So Zach Tow, we had open walk-on trials… Zach came with about 80 other kids, UK students, and went through a really rigorous trial process, and he won the right to come to practice for one day and be a practice player, and he came for one day, and after that one day, he earned the right to come back for one more day.

“And he’s done that for about 200 days. And never had a jersey, barely had space in the locker. Came and worked like crazy every single day. Never said a word, never asked for anything, never complained about everything. Came and sat on the bench for games wearing sweats.”

But Tow became more than just a walk-on bench piece Tuesday against the Tigers. Ahead of tipoff, veteran point guard Lamont Butler handed Tow his first official Kentucky jersey in front of the rest of the team. He was even given the opportunity to wear that jersey for the first time during an actual game, even if it was for only 0.2 seconds at the very end of regulation.

Butler brought up the idea to Pope around a month ago and they put it into action for the regular season home finale.

“Tonight, in our pregame speech, Lamont Butler presented him with his University of Kentucky men’s basketball jersey to be worn for the first time today in the game,” Pope said. “And he earned it. There’s nobody in the world that takes these jerseys more seriously than I do, and the fact that Zach was willing to come here and do what he’s done for our team all year long, never asking for a single thing. He earned that jersey. You guys know what that jersey means and he got to wear today. He’s got one with his name on it. It’s official. He actually got to check into a game. So he’s in the score book. He’s officially a University of Kentucky men’s basketball player. That’s super cool.”

Tow doesn’t even have a player profile on the UK Athletics website, but he now has a spot on BigBlueHistory’s page for the 2024-25 roster. The native of Madisonville, KY will have his name forever etched in the box score of Kentucky’s 31-point Senior Night victory. That’s a pretty cool accomplishment for someone who likely didn’t think he’d spend his junior year of college with the basketball team. But he quickly became part of the family.

“The guys lost their mind,” Pope added. “Zach was in stunned wonderment.”

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