Mark Pope praised Justin McBride's physicality heading into next season

Kentucky has plenty of depth on the roster for next season and one of those areas, the frontcourt, features guys who are perfect for Mark Pope's system. Not only do you have the best shooter in college basketball, Milan Momcilovic, but you've got another system-fit guy behind him at the four spot. That guy is Justin McBride, who is going to make an impact in multiple ways.

Not only does McBride provide excellent shooting ability, capable of stretching the defense out to the perimeter at his position, but he also brings some physicality with him. Throughout the summer, a number of fans have compared his skillset to a Julius Randle, a bruising force who is undersized but makes up for it with his physicality. McBride doesn't exactly have the level of physicality as Randle, who was an absolute force and double-double machine at Kentucky, but it's something opponents can't sleep on and Mark Pope believes he can have a serious impact there.

"Justin, he's got a big body and he's got an inherent physicality that's going to be really important for us this year," Pope said on Friday. "He's got a really impressive skill set on the offensive side. He's really shot it well for us. He's been great off the bounce. His decision making has been good. He is like a sieve. He wants to learn. He's humble. He wants to learn and he wants to figure out how to do it better. We've missed him for the last, you know, he's had a pretty intense viral illness. We've missed him last week or so, ten days. But he's going to be really important to us. I think he's got potential to bring some physicality to this team that we're going to need in moments."

You can expect McBride to take on a similar role to what Mo Dioubate had last season, coming in and providing spark-plug minutes off the bench as a bruising big man. But what really sets him apart from Dioubate is his shooting. Combining those two skills is important and McBride has the versatility to be a very valuable piece on the roster. Last season at James Madison, the 6-7 forward shot it at a 40 percent clip from deep in 27.1 minutes per game. Unless a real breakout happens, his minutes are going to be much less than that, but his impact will be more valuable.

McBride could provide quality minutes at the four and his shooting combined with the physicality gives him a great opportunity to do just that.

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