WATCH: Kentucky hits the ground running on summer practice to begin 2025-26 season

Mark Pope returned to Lexington from coaching at USA Basketball U19 Training Camp this week and wasted no time ramping up summer workouts at the Joe Craft Center. With eight hours of training per week — four hours being skill-related instruction — over eight weeks to work with, Kentucky is pushing to make the most of every second, starting with day one on Tuesday.

Conditioning is a “new focus” for the Wildcats during this stretch, Pope told KSR, a “huge emphasis for us the way we want to play this year.” They’ve also made some “significant headway” on learning each other during the “speed dating” process with so many new faces and names in the building.

“Being able to function on the court,” Pope said of what he’s looking to accomplish this summer. “Understanding our terminology, understanding how we play, understanding how the coaching staff communicates. Those are kind of three areas where we’ve got to be great.”

We got our first look at those things — and the new Wildcats together, in general — in Kentucky’s day-one highlights from the basketball facilities. Those include that crucial conditioning test to get started, followed by ball handling and shooting drills, plus some light scrimmaging.

“Every single day, every single minute, get better,” Pope told his team. “This is how we get there. This is how you make something sacred. This is what real sacrifice is, it’s how you make something sacred. You just move on to the next hard thing.”

We see extended looks from the returning talent, namely Otega Oweh and Brandon Garrison, along with buckets from Mo Dioubate, Denzel Aberdeen, Reece Potter, Malachi Moreno and Braydon Hawthorne.

“Good first day, y’all,” Oweh said in the post-practice huddle.

Take a look:

Hit the ground running 🏃😼 pic.twitter.com/3O71pUPSjy

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) June 18, 2025

Take a look at the full photo gallery from UK Athletics featuring plenty of hands on knees and bodies scattered all over the floor in exhaustion — but hungry to get better and push toward No. 9: