Ansley Almonor on Kentucky's shooting ability: 'It's not just on paper'

Kentucky shot 40.8% from beyond the arc last season, the highest percentage in the country. Although the program has a new head coach, the ‘Cats are still putting an emphasis on their perimeter shooting. On Thursday, senior forward Ansley Almonor discussed Kentucky’s shooting ability.

“It’s not just on paper, it’s in real life too. We really got a lot of shooters. That’s something [head coach Mark Pope] emphasizes every day in practice,” Almonor said. “He makes everybody take a lot of 3’s, lot of shots, make sure we’re perfecting our craft and that’s something he emphasizes a lot as a key to how we’re gonna play this year, how we’re gonna beat teams. We’re gonna take a lot of 3’s and we’re gonna make a lot of 3’s.”

At Fairleigh Dickinson last season, Ansley Almonor shot 39.4% from 3-point range. He made 93 3-pointers, tying the FDU single-season record. For his efforts, Almonor was named an All-NEC First Team member and was a two-time NEC Player of the Week.

Almonor is only one of Kentucky’s marksman transfers. Of the 12 scholarship players on the 2024-25 roster, only three of them have shot under 34% from deep throughout their college careers (or in the case of the three freshmen, their high school careers).

Look below to see Kentucky’s 2024-25 roster ranked by their career 3-point percentages.

• Koby Brea: 43.3%
• Trent Noah: 43% (2023-24 at Harlan County)
• Travis Perry: 41.7% (2023-24 at Lyon County)
• Ansley Almonor: 38.5%
• Collin Chandler: 37% (2019-22 at Farmington)
• Kerr Kriisa: 36.8%
• Otega Oweh: 36.8%
• Andrew Carr: 34.4%
• Jaxson Robinson: 34.3%
• Lamont Butler: 32.1%
• Amari Williams: 30.8%
• Brandon Garrison: N/A

Kentucky’s surplus of shooting fits perfectly with Pope’s offensive schemes. At BYU last season, Pope’s Cougars ranked second in all of college basketball in 3-pointers attempted at 32 per game, hitting those long-range looks at a 34.8%.

The ‘Cats will look to connect at an even higher clip in Pope’s debut campaign at the helm. Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr is excited to have the green light.

“It’s kind of different for a lot of us to get used to a coach being like, yes, shoot,” Carr said on Thursday. “We want you to shoot the three as much as possible. So I think it’s even an adjustment for us as players to know that the coaches, not only do they believe in us, but that’s a really good shot for the team. And you have to take that shot because it’s a really good shot for the team.”