With a roster that’s nearly set for the 2025-26 college basketball season and the next group of Kentucky Wildcats just a few weeks away from joining forces in Lexington, what’s the outlook for Mark Pope’s second season in charge of the program?
Good enough that Pope making good on his promise to hang more banners in Rupp Arena during his tenure as UK’s head coach is looking like a legitimate possibility in year two.
“For sure,” Brandon Garrison, the Cats’ returning big man, said this week. “Just seeing the guys that they’re bringing in, I feel like we’ll have a very great chance of chasing that No. 9 and getting further than what we did this past year.”
“No. 9” is, of course, a reference to the Wildcats’ continued quest for a ninth NCAA title. UK hasn’t won it all since 2012, and the Cats haven’t advanced to the Final Four — the requirement for raising a new banner in Rupp — since 2015.
This past season — Pope’s first as Kentucky’s coach — the Wildcats advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the first time in six years, a notable achievement in year one of a new era of UK basketball but a little short of that “banner” goal set forth by the program’s new leader.
Garrison and the rest of the returning Wildcats haven’t been the only ones keeping tabs on Pope’s transfer portal efforts and the lofty possibilities that could result from that roster construction.
The national college basketball pundits have taken notice, too.
This past week marked a milestone for the offseason. The transfer portal closed for new entries Tuesday night, the past several days have seen rampant activity with new defections and commitments across the country, and, by all accounts, the Cats came out of the week looking stronger for next season.
The big addition to UK’s 2025-26 roster was former Florida guard Denzel Aberdeen, who played a key role in the Gators’ run to a national championship this month and was projected to start for coach Todd Golden’s team in defense of that title next season.
Aberdeen committed to the Cats on Monday, a move that made waves in national circles.
Field of 68 catapulted Kentucky to No. 3 in its early Top 25 rankings immediately following Aberdeen’s announcement. The Cats have since dropped to No. 4 in those Field of 68 rankings after more additions pushed St. John’s into the No. 3 spot, with Houston and Purdue ranked 1-2.
That’s one group of veteran college basketball observers that has UK as a top four team in America.
247Sports recruiting analyst Travis Branham — a national expert covering the portal and college basketball, at large — posted on X that the addition of Aberdeen gave Kentucky “a Final Four-caliber roster” with “a deeper and more talented squad” than Pope’s first UK team.
Aberdeen joined fellow transfers Jaland Lowe, Kam Williams, Mouhamed Dioubate and Jayden Quaintance in UK’s 2025 portal class. All five of those players are talented enough to start for teams with legitimate national title hopes, something Kentucky can now claim for next season.
And those five won’t be alone, obviously.
Pope is also bringing in three college basketball newcomers: five-star guard Jasper Johnson, McDonald’s All-American post player Malachi Moreno and intriguing, 6-11 Croatian forward Andrija Jelavic.
Joining Garrison in the returnee category will be Collin Chandler and Trent Noah, at the very least. Keeping Garrison, Chandler and Noah out of the transfer portal was a victory for the UK staff.
The Cats did lose Travis Perry to the transfer portal Tuesday night, a surprise departure of a local fan favorite who contributed as a freshman and offered roster continuity moving forward, but not a player expected to have a major impact on the Cats’ 2025-26 season.
Kentucky will now wait for a decision from Otega Oweh — the Cats’ leading scorer this past season — as he goes through the NBA draft process. Oweh is not widely projected to be selected in the 59-pick draft — ESPN had him at No. 77 on its latest Top 100 prospects list Thursday — and he is still expected to return to Lexington for his senior season.
If Oweh does indeed come back, he’d almost certainly be a preseason All-SEC selection and could even be in the discussion for the league’s preseason player of the year.
“Having him definitely changes that dynamic,” Chandler said of adding Oweh to an already talented roster. “We want the best for him, and his dream is to play in the NBA, as all of ours is. And so we hope that opportunity arises for him.
“But if he does decide to come back, I mean, no one’s gonna be complaining,” he continued with a laugh. “O is a great teammate to play with and to grow with. And so, selfishly, I would love to play with O again.”
