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Alabama transfer Mo Dioubate has played with and against numerous talented players during his Southeastern Conference basketball career.
During his media time Monday, Dioubate was asked which new Kentucky teammate had impressed him the most during early summer workouts.
Even though freshman Jasper Johnson had to leave for a tryout with USA Basketball in Colorado for the U19 team that would represent the USA in the FIBA Men’s World Cup in Switzerland, he still did plenty to impress Dioubate before he left — and Johnson did make the 12-player final foster.
“He was pretty impressive in practice. I see his highlights and stuff on Instagram and stuff. But when I got to see him play, he actually impressed me a lot,” Dioubate said about Johnson.
Coach Mark Pope certainly has set a high bar for Johnson by predicting he will be a “superstar” and noting he was the “most dangerous scorer” in high school basketball last season. The UK coach told me recently he was not worried about the praise bothering Johnson because he had such high expectations for himself.
Johnson was a top 25 prospect in the 2025 recruiting class but making the USA team combined with the praise from Pope and now Dioubate indicate that the 6-4 guard could be even better than projected.
One Response
Pope realized that part of their lack of physicality from last year’s team was due to conditioning. He is addressing that this year by making them run 17s. That is running from sideline to sideline 17 times in 66 seconds for the bigs, 63 seconds for the guards & wings. That is 3.7 seconds per trip! They get to rest one minute and then do it again 4 times! If they fail any section, they have to do it again the following week. Think about how many times you have to practice doing that to be able to do it on the clock for real. This team is going to be tough!