Kentucky players talk about the team's identity heading into the NCAA Tournament

Denzel Aberdeen and Otega Oweh were asked what this Kentucky team's identity is ahead of the tournament.

Mar 19, 2026; St. Louis, MO, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Otega Oweh (00) and guard Denzel Aberdeen (1) talk with the media during a practice session ahead of the first round of the men's 2026 NCAA Tournament at Enterprise Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

It's a very important weekend for Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats coming up. Not only do they need to win Friday to avoid a very, very dreadful off-season, but a win on Sunday would please many fans as far as the outlook of this entire season goes. Ahead of the big weekend, Denzel Aberdeen and Otega Oweh were asked about the team's identity and how they would best describe them.

This Kentucky team has had a very up-and-down season, but one thing is for sure, and that's the fact that they will never stop fighting. As for Aberdeen and Oweh's thoughts on the team's identity, they both had a very common ground, and that was about their fight, no matter what hurdles are in their way. As veterans in college basketball, they know how important that trait is.

Mar 7, 2026; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Otega Oweh (00) fives guard Denzel Aberdeen (1) during the first half against the Florida Gators at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images | Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

As for Aberdeen, he specifically cited the team's ability to embrace physicality, noting that as an area they struggled with early in the season, but improved as time went on. "Our identity is to play hard and play for each other. We know now it's win or go home (in the NCAA Tournament). So we got to do everything we can to keep going in this tournament and go as far as we can. We want to win it all, so you're gonna see a lot of us coming out stronger, hitting first, being physical. Being more physical, that's kind of what we struggled with at the beginning of the season, but I think we picked it on as time went on."

With Oweh, the ability to simply never quit fighting no matter the circumstances is what really sticks out to him. "I feel like our identity is, we're just a relentless crew this season. We've had a lot of ups and downs and we just never quit. We fought through it all. Could be down 20, we still gonna fight and try and win the game. So I feel like that's our identity. We're definitely trying to limit those slow starts, but regardless of how it goes, we're still gonna fight. And I feel like that's our identity."

There really does seem to be a trend with this team that even though they have gotten down big deficits multiple times, they don't just lay down and give up. Early in the season, that seemed to be the case at times, but not the team that we have seen over the last few months, a group that is known to climb back late in games as we saw just last week against Florida.

If Kentucky can avoid not only slow starts, but late-game collapses and stay focused all throughout, it can help their chances of making some noise this weekend in hopes to make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.