Kentucky's basketball roster is almost set for the upcoming 2025-2026 season but everyone is waiting on a decision from Otega Oweh, the senior guard who led the Wildcats in scoring before putting his name in the NBA Draft pool to go through the process with the possibility of a return.

Oweh's 16.2 points per game last year after a couple of seasons at Oklahoma helped Kentucky to a solid season in Mark Pope's first year as the program's coach, and if he returns he will be a strong candidate to lead the Cats in scoring once again.

At Pope's meeting with local media this week he spoke about Oweh right away, since it's such a pivotal time for his basketball future and because his decision means so much for Kentucky next year.

While Pope has been supportive of Oweh's exploration of the draft process he also hasn't kept secret the fact that he would love to have him around for a second and final season in Lexington.

Right now, NBA folks are learning things about Oweh that Pope learned quickly on the fly when he took the job last year and made him a key priority in the transfer portal.

"Otega's physicality is elite," Pope said. "His physicality on the offensive and defensive end is elite. And that shows up in a lot of ways. That shows up in contact. In hits. It shows up in his explosiveness. It shows up in his first steps. It shows up in his ability to navigate guarding guys off the ball through screens and on all the ball through screens by creating space with his chest. In those ways he's 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," Pope said. "And like I say, he has so much room to grow, he hasn't even begun to tap into that. His ceiling as a playmaker, I think he can become an elite level playmaker."

Of course Pope wants those 16.2 points per game back, or whatever number Oweh would post next year should he return.

But he's also dreaming on Oweh's upside.

"I think something that he's talked about a lot is his ability to get his shot off more quickly," Pope said. "He shot the ball really well at 36 or 37% but to get it off quicker and get more attempts is a big deal for him."

Oweh shot 35.5% from three-point range last year but only attempted 76 shots behind the arc. That was only five more attempts than Andrew Carr had from deep and 16 three-point attempts fewer than Ansley Almonor. Of Oweh's 415 field goal attempts on the season only 18% were from long range. For a lead scorer in this day and age, and one who could be one of the best players in the SEC, improving that clip and creating the confidence for more of a green light could be key.

The shooting piece was the first area for improvement that Pope identified in terms of unlocking that next level in Oweh's game. But the physicality that he mentioned right away in the press conference is key to unlocking another level, he said.

"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 and I think he can have a chance to grow into one of the elite steals guys in the country. He has a ton of room to grow. He's an unbelievable player and he had a great season last year. He's pretty fun to talk about," Pope said.

Oweh averaged 1.6 steals per game for Kentucky last year. If he were to up that to two per game it would put him in the top-50 nationally and in elite company.