St. Louis
As Kentucky men’s basketball prepares to launch play in the 2026 NCAA Tournament Friday against Santa Clara, what if I told you the one player UK has to have on the court is …
… Mo Dioubate?
That may be a touch hyperbolic, but by one metric, UK has fared the best down the stretch of the 2025-26 season when the 6-foot-7, 220-pound transfer forward from Alabama has been on the playing floor.
Over Kentucky’s previous 13 games, Dioubate, has been “plus” in the plus/minus metric 10 times — and was even in another game.
By way of comparison, the two players generally recognized as UK’s best, Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen, have been on the plus side of the plus/minus chart eight and nine times, respectively, in the past 13 games.
“I didn’t know the numbers, but I know when I’m in, I’m always making an impact in the game,” Dioubate said Thursday in the UK locker room at Enterprise Center. “That’s my mindset going into the game, trying to change the energy and the dynamic of the game.”
Kentucky forward Mouhamed Dioubate (23) autographed a basketball following UK’s open practice Thursday at Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Dioubate and the No. 7 seed Wildcats open play in March Madness Friday against No. 10 seed Santa Clara. Ryan C. Hermens [email protected]
The plus/minus metric is a measurement of how a team fares when an individual player is on the court. For instance, if a Team A scores eight points more than Team B with Johnny Jumpshot on the floor, then Jumpshot’s plus/minus rating for that game is plus-8.
“Like all analytics, plus/minus, in a general sense, is a pretty broad-brush stat that depends on so many other factors in the game — but it is something, right?” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “It does tell you at least one slice of the story you should have to consider in the context of all the other things.”
Kentucky, you will recall, lost three times this season against SEC regular season champion Florida by nine, seven and eight points, respectively.
With Dioubate (8.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 53.3% FGs on the season) on the court in those games, UK was plus-3, plus-6 and plus-6 against the Gators. There is some nuance in those numbers — single-game plus/minus is in part the product of who else is on the court and the circumstances of the game — but Dioubate’s impact is more than just data.
“He just brings so much energy and intensity and physicality, and he brings so much to our team,” Pope said of Dioubate. “In a lot of ways, he’s been the defensive, emotional, heart and soul of our group. When he’s great, we’re great, almost without fail.”
For the past month, Dioubate has been playing while observing Ramadan. The holiest month in the Islamic calendar, Ramadan features daily fasting from sunset to sundown, plus prayer and reflection.
For a NCAA Division I basketball player, the fasting from sunset to sun down is challenging.
If you watched Kentucky’s game at Texas A&M, you saw UK remove Dioubate from the game once the sun had gone down outside so the junior forward could eat applesauce and peanut butter and jelly on the Cats bench.
Prior to sunup during Ramadan, Dioubate said he has tried “to eat good … pancakes, eggs, turkey bacon, with potatoes, salted potatoes. I like a yogurt, some fruit, a lot.”
The biggest obstacle from fasting during college basketball games, Dioubate said, was the inability to rehydrate by drinking water.
“That’s the hardest part by far,” he said.
Ramadan ended Thursday, meaning Dioubate will not be fasting when No. 7 seed Kentucky (21-13, 10-8 SEC) faces No. 10 seed Santa Clara (26-8, 15-3) in the Midwest Region round of 64 on Friday.
Dioubate said he is not concerned about any challenges associated with transitioning out of the dietary regimen dictated by Ramadan.
“I’m gonna keep the mindset of Ramadan up until the season is over, and I’m just trying to keep it the same, staying focused, staying locked in, sticking with my good habits that I’ve been doing (through) Ramadan,” he said. “I’m just keeping it up until season’s over.”
On the basketball court, Dioubate’s value to Kentucky is not always reflected in the traditional statistics.
“I think everybody knows what Mo brings, sometimes isn’t in the stat line,” Kentucky guard Collin Chandler said. “Sometimes, it’s not what people talk about in the stat line. So having him, somebody who brings a different kind of physicality, is really invaluable.”
When Kentucky began SEC play, Dioubate was in the starting lineup. Out of UK’s first six league games, Dioubate was “minus” in five.
After Pope inserted Andrija Jelavic as the starting power forward and started bringing Dioubate off the bench, the Queens, New York, product has become UK’s most-reliable “plus” contributor.
“It just made me even hungrier, that I’m coming off the bench,” Dioubate said. “Me watching the game from the bench gives me a chance to analyze all the mistakes that (are) happening and the way the offense (is) and the way the defense is.
“So once I come into the game, I’m already knowing what to do, where to be at and stuff like that. So, it just, it just gave me more hunger.”
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Mark Story
Lexington Herald-Leader
Mark Story has worked in the Lexington Herald-Leader sports department since Aug. 27, 1990, and has been a Herald-Leader sports columnist since 2001. I have covered every Kentucky-Louisville football game since 1994, every UK-U of L basketball game but three since 1996-97 and every Kentucky Derby since 1994.
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