Collin Chandler believes teammate Trent Noah could have a huge sophomore season. (Vicky Graff Photo)
He is not being mentioned as one of the prominent players on next year’s Kentucky team but sophomore guard Trent Noah of Harlan County certainly has the support of teammates and coaches.
“I think the expectations for Trent are very high, because of his skill set,” Collin Chandler, another sophomore guard, said. “And you can’t really look back on last year. I mean, you can look at what he’s done — the potential he shows — but he’s going to be a completely different player. A better player.
“He’s had months to work on his game. And I think everyone in Kentucky knows what Trent is capable of, and so I think he’s just going to continue to get better. And he’s always exciting to watch.
“Even if there were times where me and him weren’t playing in games, there’s a lot of things behind the scenes that people don’t see. And the spurts that he shows.”
Coach Mark Pope said when the season ended that Noah had made tremendous strides on the defensive end considering he basically only played zone defense in high school.
Pope recalled late in the season when he had Noah guarding Alabama’s Mark Sears, the 2023-24 SEC Player of the Year.
‘When he first got here, the speed and athleticism was shocking to him and every day, he picked up more and more and more. By the end of season, he just felt like he belonged.”
Pope also expects Noah to be better “off the bounce” as a sophomore and be more physical on both offense and defense.
“I think he’s going to get better and more creative with what he’s doing in terms of his reads. He’s going to be a tremendous player,” Pope said.
The coach asked Noah to add weight during the offseason and he has. Noah believes that will help his overall play.
“The SEC is a monster. So I mean, you go in there, you’re playing really big, athletic players every game,” Noah said. “You have to be able to match that and it (more weight) should make that easier for me.”
2 Responses
I know he will be better everyone does. He question is how much playing time will be available for him when we are 14 deep? I don’t see him playing more than 10 minutes per game. I’m guessing maybe 5-10 mins a game. I think he will have a role similar to Almonor had last year. Where there are games he plays 11-12 minutes then there are games he maybe plays 5-6 mins would be my guess at this point. Two signings on this team destroyed the playing time that he could have received and that is Aberdeen and Williams. As of right now I’d say starters with JQ are Lowe/Oweh/Mo-D/JQ/Garrison the backups are Johnson-Aberdeen/Chandler-Noah/Williams-Hawthorne/Jelavic/Moreno-Potter. Its hard enough to get #11-#12 on the roster minutes. That’s why I can see Pope redshirting at the bare minimum one player. Really it would be smart to red shirt 2 players. I would redshirt Hawthorne and Potter. If this happens it will give Noah much more playing time. If they don’t redshirt I don’t see how you keep everyone happy. Another crazy thing about this team is we have the #1 center coming out of high school a McDonald’s all American and a Kentucky boy Moreno. For any other team in college basketball if he doesn’t start he does play 20 mins a game. For this Kentucky team he might be the third option at center. That’s how deep we are. I think we did take one guard to many, but with all the injuries nowadays its good to be deep.
This team has the perfect mix of defense, rebounding, scoring, and shooters. They also have the perfect balance of experience with 2 seniors 4 juniors 4 soph. And 4 freshman. This team is ready now and is set for the future. Pope really doesn’t need to recruit too many freshman this year. I’d say go after the 2 best freshman money can buy. We have the potential minus JQ to get 11 guys back next year. Of course there will be a transfer or 2. Lets say 2 transfers and we are already at 9 guys for next year. I’d say take the 2 best freshman that you can get and you don’t make any promises to them they have to earn there playing time. That puts us at 11 then you can take the best 2-3 transfers that you can get. Regardless we will have 9-10 guys next year with multiple years experience playing for Pope. We will only get better and better.