Mark Pope believes Otega Oweh has 'so much room to grow' as he begins crucial week at NBA Draft Combine

One of the biggest weeks of Otega Oweh‘s life is officially underway, the Kentucky star working out for teams at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago as he inches closer toward a decision on keeping his name in the draft or returning to Lexington for one final season of eligibility. For now, it’s about testing and measurements — the first run of those results coming back on Tuesday.

How did things go there? Here are the official anthro measurements, according to Jon Chepkevich of Draft Express:

• 6’4 ¼” barefoot
• 212.6 lbs
• 6’8 ½” wingspan
• 8’5 ½” standing reach

Not too shabby.

Kentucky’s Otega Oweh’s anthro measurements from the 2025 NBA Draft Combine:

6’4 ¼" barefoot, 212.6 lbs with a 6’8 ½" wingspan and 8’5 ½" standing reach pic.twitter.com/FwMtdDFVdc

— Jon Chepkevich (@JonChep) May 13, 2025

Oweh will participate in 5-on-5 scrimmages starting Wednesday afternoon, suiting up for Team Lazare alongside the likes of Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford, Wake Forest’s Hunter Sallis, West Virginia’s Javon Small and Michigan’s Vlad Goldin. He’ll also go through drills, medical examinations and team interviews beyond the athletic testing and live scrimmage reps with the event lasting through May 18.

What will NBA teams learn about the Kentucky standout this week in Chicago? Ask his head coach for the Wildcats, who hopes to get him back for another year in Lexington.

What Oweh does best, no one else in the college game — or anyone competing at the Combine, for that matter — compares. He’s truly elite in one specific area that translates to several other areas.

“Otega’s physicality, is elite. His physicality on the offensive and defensive end, that shows up in a lot of ways,” Pope said Tuesday. “It shows up in contact, it shows up in his explosiveness, it shows up in his first step, it shows up in his ability to kind of navigate guarding guys off the ball through screens and on the ball through screens by creating space with his chest.

“In those ways, he is as good as you’re going to find. He’s really special. He grew so much last season in terms of kind of winning the point of attack over and over, whether it was on the ball or off the ball defensively.”

If he were a perfectly polished prospect, though, he’d be a lock for the first round with lottery upside. Instead, he’s fighting for his place toward the back of the draft as a projected second-round selection, at best. No Ceilings is the highest on Oweh at this stage at No. 45 overall with ESPN, The Athletic, Yahoo! Sports, Bleacher Report and Tankathon all leaving the Kentucky standout off the board entirely. ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo didn’t even include Oweh among the notable stay-or-go decisions in a list of 15 players in Chicago.

Those things work in the Wildcats’ favor as the 6-4 guard trends toward a return. What does he have to gain by doing so? Pope shared some of the things Oweh is working on and what he would have to gain by coming back for a second season in Lexington.

His upside is sky-high, to put it simply.

“Like all of us, he has so much room to grow,” Pope said. “I think his ceiling as a playmaker, he hasn’t even begun to tap into that. I think he can become an elite, elite-level playmaker. Something that he’s talked a lot about is his ability to get his shot off more quickly. He shot the ball really well last year at 36, 37 percent from three, but to get it off quicker and get more attempts, I think is a big deal for him. On the defensive end, his ability to kind of neutralize bigs on the glass and bigs on switches is a place where he can really excel. I think he has a chance to grow into one of the elite steals guys in the country.

“He’s got a ton of room to grow. He’s an unbelievable player who had a great season last year. It’s pretty fun to talk about.”

Either way, Pope is there to support Oweh in his journey to figure out what’s next in his bright basketball future — just as he is for all of the guys going through the draft process.

“We’re talking to all of our guys going through this process all the time. This is a really exciting time for our guys that are in this draft process,” Pope said. “As a staff, we’ve had guys out to all the different venues where they’re training, guys at the G League combine, we’ll have a presence at the (Draft) Combine this week, guys’ workouts.

“These are lifelong relationships that we build. As these guys pursue the next step, it’s really exciting for us and exciting for them. We’re on it.”