Erin Lamb was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Minnesota, played on a state championship team, earned All-American honors and was a top-30 recruit nationally.

Still, she had a lot of pressure on her when she came to Kentucky in 2021 because UK was coming off a national championship season. Lamb and classmates Emma Grome and Eleanor Beavin certainly have handled the pressure as UK has won four straight Southeastern Conference championships since their arrival and are in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year.

“I mean we set out to do this as a freshman and to add more on to what they already had done,” Lamb said. “Obviously there was pressure, but pressure is a privilege in our gym. It’s just a privilege to wear Kentucky across our chest, and we take pride in that.

“We wanted to come in and do whatever we could to take on what was in front of us.”

Lamb said she bonded immediately with Grome, an All-American setter and SEC Player of the Year, and Beavin, an all-SEC libero.

“We were pretty close from the start. We had gotten to know each other before even coming on campus,” Lamb said. “There was definitely a bond there from the beginning and it carried out all four years.

“I’m so blessed to have them in my life. I’ll have them with me forever, the rest of my life. We made that bond and it never went away.”

Kentucky has faced a lot of adversity this season. The Cats were 6-6 after consecutive losses to Purdue, Louisville and Stanford and then suffered a fourth straight loss at Auburn to open SEC play. After getting three wins, two-time defending national champion Texas came to Lexington and swept UK.

Lamb was injured and missed most of 12 SEC matches and Asia Thigpen, who plays the same position, hurt her knee before the Purdue loss. She came back but re-injured the same knee two matches ago and might not play this weekend.

Coach Craig Skinner also moved Beavin, who had started every match at libero for three years, to a rotational player and inserted sophomore Molly Tuozzo at libero.

Yet Kentucky has won 11 straight matches, including eight by sweeps, since the Texas loss.

“Craig is really good about just recruiting depth, and then that’s something we pride ourselves on. We have a lot of depth. We have people every single day in practice challenging us,” Lamb said. “It makes us better, it makes them better, and it makes us ready for the next opportunity. So credit to Craig for that.”

Beavin never let her move impact the team negatively and Lamb respects the way her teammate responded.

“It would have been very easy to just hang it up and say, ‘You know what? This sucks and I’m done.’ But that’s the complete opposite of what she did. She even stepped up more, I would say, as a vocal leader, didn’t let it put her down at all,” Lamb said. “She’s playing phenomenal.”

What about Lamb? She could have let the non-volleyball medical issue that kept her on the sideline discourage her, but she kept smiling and encouraging until she got back in the lineup.

“I’ve never been taught that way (to give up), and I will never do anything like that,” the Kentucky senior said. “I know it’s in my character that when the times are hard, I’m definitely there to step up and whoever needs me, wherever you need me, I’m ready to be there.”

Lamb likes where Kentucky is going into postseason play. The seniors have been to the Sweet 16 but have not advanced past that round. Lamb believes this team can make a postseason run.

“We were definitely tested early, which I think we’re going to use to our advantage. Our depth, getting pushed every day during practice is an advantage,” she said. “Moving forward, we’re going to take this (winning the SEC) and just continue to build off that.

“There are still little things that we need to get better at. Just tidying up things and taking our game to the next level to do all we can to have a great finish,” Lamb said.

Whenever her UK career does end, Lamb knows what the most important thing she learned at Kentucky has been.

“Surround yourself with people that are going to push you and make you the best version of yourself that you can be,” Lamb said. “I would not be standing here in the shape I am without the staff and my teammates and my family pushing me. I would never have thought as a freshman I would be who I am today and I am very thankful for everyone who helped me get to this point.”

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Kentucky Radio Network analyst Jack Givens knew Kentucky players likely knew next to nothing about him when coach Mark Pope introduced him to the team earlier this season.

“I am an old man,” said Givens, the 1978 Final Four MVP on UK’s national championship team. “Mark talks to them about my career and me being the third all-time leading scorer at UK, won a championship and had 41 points against Duke (in the national title game). Now they did perk up when they heard that.”

The next time Givens was at practice, point guard Lamont Butler came up to him.

“He knows every stat and every game. He knew everything about me that you could possibly know,” Givens said. “For a guy who didn’t know anything about me to put that much time into learning about me, that meant a lot and says a lot about the kind of player that Mark Pope recruited.”

Givens said Butler “obviously became a real favorite” of his and he asked Butler how he was doing before the Blue-White Game.

“I walked up and he gave me some love. ‘Goose, I am playing at the University of Kentucky. How could it be any better?’ That is the way all these guys are and it is because of Mark,” Givens said. “He makes sure each player knows and understands the responsibility he has to the Big Blue Nation and all these guys are eating that up.”

•••

Koby Brea was the nation’s top 3-point shooter at Dayton last season when he made 100 of 201 3s, a 49.8% mark – the highest percentage in the NCAA in six seasons. None of that was a huge surprise considering he had shot 46% from 3 the previous season.

Brea transferred to Kentucky and got off to an even hotter start from 3-point range this season, but has yet to start a game – and that has been fine with him.

“Over the years, I (have) just gotten used to it. I pretty much have a routine when I’m coming in the game, and then everybody talks about, you know, how coming off the bench is not the best thing, whatever. But for me, I see it as a pretty good thing,” said Brea, who was averaging a career-best 14.8 points per game after UK’s first seven games.

“I get to see the game before I get in. I get to see how the other team is guarding us and I get to see our guys, how they’re playing, who’s high, who’s not. I kind of just read the game from the outside, and then I come in and I’m able to do what I have to do. I think it’s a pretty good opportunity for me before I get into a game.”

Brea said he tries to play his game whether UK is playing Duke or Jackson State.

“I don’t see any game differently. I don’t treat any possessions differently. I’m just going out there and I’m just playing with my brothers,” he said. “At the end of the day, I just got to stick to the game plan and we all just try to win.”

While Brea’s offense gets a lot of attention, he likes the way the team is “connected defensively” already even though the Cats have an all-new team this year.

“The more games we go, the better it gets. We start to see more clips on film of how connected our team is defensively and how many kills we’re getting, three stops in a row,” Brea said. “Every game, that’s something we take pride in.”

Brea had not played in Rupp Arena before transferring to UK, but he had been to Rupp. He came to see rappers Drake and J. Cole in concert in March.

“He was like, ‘Man, this is Kentucky.’ And his girlfriend asked, ‘Are you more excited about Drake or Rupp?’ He said, ‘I’m more excited about Rupp,’ ” Kentucky coach Mark Pope revealed on his radio show when talking about Brea’s play in Rupp Arena.

•••

Even if the 2024-25 college basketball season is not even two months old, there is already some speculation about the 2026 NBA Draft.

Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report recently listed his top 20 prospects for the 2026 draft. He noted that his rankings “reflect long-term potential under the NBA scouting lens, not necessarily current high school impact/production” for players in the 16 to 18 age range.

Kentucky signee Jasper Johnson now plays for Overtime Elite in Atlanta and in his first five games this season the 6-foot-4 combo guard averaged 19.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 31.2 minutes per game. He shot 52.6% overall from the field and 42.9% from 3-point range.

Wasserman has Johnson seventh on his 2026 draft board. He believes his game is fueled by confidence, speed and shotmaking that should fit well into the style of play at Overtime Elite. He also likes the way he hit 3-pointers at Link Academy last season and then went 11-for-24 from 3 for Team USA at the U18 Americas Championship.

“Johnson loves to shoot 3s in transition, though he does have some athletic pop around the basket on fast breaks. In the half court, he’s more accurate spotting up, but he has some flashy handles to create separation and pull up from deep,” Wasserman wrote. “Rarely does he take a 2-point jumper. Johnson instead opts for a lot of floaters, a shot he made at an outstanding 48.6% clip last year in high school.

“At 175 pounds, it would be more comforting to see Johnson take on more of a playmaking role, given the size of NBA 2-guards. He’s taller than former Kentucky guard Rob Dillingham, but he has a similarly thin frame and scorer’s mentality.

“Still, there is enough creativity with Johnson’s dribble and game for playmaking. And when he wants to pass, he clearly can make the ones point guards are supposed to. He’s going to be an offensive spark in any setting.”

Johnson was at Kentucky’s win over Western Kentucky in Rupp Arena with his parents when he returned home to Lexington for a Thanksgiving visit. He was introduced to the crowd and got a huge ovation when he was on the court.

Major Kentucky recruiting target Caleb Wilson, of Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Atlanta, is 10th on Wasserman’s list. The 6-9 forward has Kentucky on his final five list and watched UK beat Duke in Atlanta earlier this season.

“At 6-9 with a strong frame, he mainly leaves his mark on games by delivering easy baskets (transition, off dump-downs, put-backs), defending in space, creating turnovers and making plays on the ball,” Wasserman wrote. “Defensively, his size, feet and strength are tremendous, particularly for guarding wings around the perimeter. He’s the type who could rank near the leaderboard of 3-point attempts blocked.

“Offensively, he does add something with his passing, but Wilson’s self-creation skill and shooting are behind his physical abilities, and he will be 19 years old to start next season (wherever it may be).”

•••

Quote of the Week: “You cannot be more happy than you are grateful. You see rich people that are happy and rich people that are sad. You see famous people that are happy and famous people that are sad. You see poor people that are sad and poor people that are happy. It doesn’t matter the circumstance, it matters the gratitude that you bring with it,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope, talking about gratitude on his weekly radio call-in show.

Quote of the Week 2: “I’ve coached a lot of great players – WNBA players, players that were All-Americans, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a stat line like that. She’s amazing,” UK women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks, on Teonni Key after she had 16 points, 13 rebounds, six blocks, four assists and three steals against Arizona State.