Which players is UK basketball still pursuing? And other transfer portal news
The NCAA men’s basketball transfer portal continues to ebb and flow, and Kentucky basketball remains a major player in it.
UK already has three commitments from the portal for the 2025-26 season.
Mark Pope and the Wildcats picked up a portal commitment from former Tulane freshman wing Kam Williams on the morning of March 28, just hours before UK’s 2024-25 season ended with a loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. Then on Saturday morning, Kentucky added a portal pledge from former Pittsburgh sophomore guard Jaland Lowe.
The latest portal add for the Wildcats came Monday night, when former Alabama forward Mouhamed Dioubate committed to UK from the transfer portal.
And still, Kentucky remains active in the portal, with plenty of rumors continuing to swirl about additional transfer targets for UK.
Elsewhere, SEC programs continue to snap up some of the most sought-after players in the portal, all while Florida gets set to compete for a national championship against Houston on Monday night.
Here’s who Pope and his coaching staff are still pursuing to come to Lexington next season from the portal, along with other transfer portal notes from around the country.
Alvaro Folgueiras remains frontcourt option for UK
A star mid-major player from Spain is one of the Wildcats’ biggest targets left in the portal.
Robert Morris sophomore forward Alvaro Folgueiras has some of the most notable accomplishments of any player, at any level, in the portal.
The 6-foot-9 forward was was the Horizon League’s player of the year this past season for a Robert Morris team that made its first NCAA Tournament trip in a decade. Folgueiras averaged 14.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.2 blocks for the Colonials, while shooting 41.3% on 3s and 54.8% from the field.
In a loss to Alabama (and new UK player Dioubate) in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Folgueiras had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds in 33 minutes against the Crimson Tide.
247Sports had Folgueiras ranked at No. 32 in its transfer portal rankings, as of Monday night.
KenPom also ranks Folgueiras highly in a number of metrics, including defensive rebounding percentage, effective field goal percentage, offensive rating and true shooting percentage.
Former Indiana forward Mackenzie Mgbako still available
Also still in the transfer portal is former Indiana forward Mackenzie Mgbako, a sophomore and former five-star recruit from the 2023 recruiting group.
Last season with the Hoosiers, Mgbako averaged 12.2 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists. Mgbako, who started all but one game over the last two seasons at Indiana, is also “testing the waters of the NBA.”
According to college basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa, Mgbako is a top-10 player available in the transfer portal, as of Monday night, though 247Sports ranks him at No. 64 overall.
A former McDonald’s All-American in 2023, Mgbako was initially signed to play at Duke before flipping to Indiana. He was also recruited in high school by John Calipari to UK.
The 6-foot-9 Mgbako — a career 81.7% shooter from the free-throw line — is one of only two players from the transfer portal who have taken a recruiting visit to the UK campus. The other is former Florida State forward Taylor Bol Bowen, who has already committed to Alabama.
Currently, an NCAA “dead period” is in place, which means college coaches aren’t allowed to meet in person with recruits, on or off campus. This dead period lasts through Thursday, which means Friday is the next day college coaches will be allowed to bring recruits on campus and hit the road themselves to meet with potential new players off campus.
This doesn’t mean that portal activity will be paused, though. All three of UK’s portal commitments — Dioubate, Lowe and Williams — picked the Wildcats without taking a recruiting visit to Kentucky.
High-scoring guard Jaron Pierre Jr. is still on the table
Along with the weekend commitment of Lowe — a third-team All-ACC selection with Pittsburgh last season — Kentucky has shown interest in another veteran guard in the transfer portal.
And he happens to be one of the highest-scoring guards in all of college basketball.
Jaron Pierre Jr., who averaged 21.6 points last season at Jacksonville State on his way to collecting Conference USA’s player of the year honor, has been on UK’s radar in recent days, and he begins this week at No. 33 in the 247Sports transfer rankings, making him one of the top prospects available.
Pierre, who has one season of NCAA eligibility remaining, is well traveled. He began his college career in 2020 at Southern Mississippi, where he spent two seasons, before playing the 2022-23 season at Wichita State and last season with the Gamecocks. Pierre didn’t play college basketball during the 2023-24 campaign.
Last season, Pierre shot 81% from the foul line and 38.2% on 3-pointers.
The 21.6 points that Pierre averaged per contest last season were the fourth-most in the nation, as were his 104 made 3-pointers.
According to CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein, Pierre has already taken a recruiting visit to SMU.
Former UK portal target Reed Bailey picks Indiana
A former Kentucky portal target announced his next college stop on Sunday.
Reed Bailey, a 6-foot-10 junior forward formerly of Davidson, will be going to Indiana as part of new IU head coach Darian DeVries’ first team in Bloomington.
Bailey averaged 18.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists last season at Davidson, where he spent all three of his previous college seasons. He’s ranked No. 36 in the 247Sports transfer rankings.
Bailey joins former Drake and DePaul guard Conor Enright and Tucker DeVries — who previously played for his father, Darian, at both Drake and West Virginia — as transfer portal arrivals for IU this offseason.
Remember, Indiana and Kentucky will renew their on-court men’s basketball rivalry this December with a game at Rupp Arena. That contest will be the first in an upcoming four-year series between the schools.
Former UK guard Kerr Kriisa picks new school from transfer portal
The first member of Mark Pope’s Kentucky basketball team to hit the transfer portal has settled on his new school.
On Sunday evening, former UK guard Kerr Kriisa announced he would be using his final season of college eligibility at Cincinnati.
Kriisa only played in nine games this past season at UK, his only season with the Wildcats. He suffered a foot injury in Kentucky’s win over Gonzaga on Dec. 7 in Seattle and didn’t return to the court after that. Near the end of the regular season, Pope announced that Kriisa wouldn’t be able to return to game action.
Kriisa has played five seasons of college basketball, with stints at Arizona, West Virginia and Kentucky. But, since Kriisa only played in nine games for the Wildcats last season and because of when his season-ending foot injury occurred, Kriisa is expected to be eligible for a medical redshirt to play next season with the Bearcats.
Across his nine games at UK, Kriisa averaged 4.4 points and 3.8 assists in 17.3 minutes.
In 2023, ex-Cat CJ Fredrick also transferred from Kentucky to Cincinnati.
LSU basketball adds talent influx via NCAA transfer portal
There was talk as the college basketball offseason began that LSU would be one of the schools loading up to fund a makeover of its men’s basketball team.
And it’s hard to argue that an influx of talent wasn’t needed in Baton Rouge.
Former Murray State head coach Matt McMahon is now 0-for-3 at taking LSU to the NCAA Tournament since becoming the Tigers’ head coach in 2022. This past season, LSU went 3-15 in conference play and finished with the second-worst conference record in the new 16-team SEC.
Well, change is on the way for the Tigers, who have received transfer portal commitments from five players so far this offseason.
Leading the charge among these newcomers is former UNLV guard Dedan Thomas Jr., a top-10 player in the 247Sports transfer rankings.
Other newcomers for the Tigers this offseason include forward Marquel Sutton (who averaged 18.9 points last season for Omaha, an NCAA Tournament team) and Rashad King, a guard who averaged 18.5 points last season at Northeastern. Like Dioubate, sophomore center Michael Nwoko will also be making an intraconference move from Mississippi State to LSU.
Among LSU’s outgoing players via the portal this offseason is ex-Cat Daimion Collins, who made 22 starts for the Tigers last season. On Sunday night, another outgoing Tiger — freshman forward Corey Chest — announced that he would also be staying in the SEC and transferring to Ole Miss.
SEC men’s basketball activity in NCAA transfer portal
LSU isn’t the only SEC school that has undergone a makeover via the transfer portal.
According to the 247Sports men’s college basketball transfer portal rankings, the following top-60 players in the portal have either transferred from, or to, an SEC school.
▪ No. 7: Guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie (Maryland to Tennessee).
▪ No. 8: Guard Silas Demary Jr. (Georgia to UConn).
▪ No. 9: Guard Dedan Thomas Jr. (UNLV to LSU).
▪ No. 11: Forward Keyshawn Hall (Central Florida to Auburn).
▪ No. 19: Center Pharrel Payne (Texas A&M to Maryland).
▪ No. 22: Guard Jaland Lowe (Pittsburgh to Kentucky).
▪ No. 26: Guard Nijel Pack (Miami to Oklahoma).
▪ No. 28: Forward Kam Williams (Tulane to Kentucky).
▪ No. 29: Forward Dailyn Swain (Xavier to Texas).
▪ No. 37: Guard Jalil Bethea (Miami to Alabama).
▪ No. 43: Forward Tae Davis (Notre Dame to Oklahoma).
▪ No. 52: Guard Treysen Eaglestaff (North Dakota to South Carolina).
▪ No. 55: Forward Marquel Sutton (Omaha to LSU).
▪ No. 56: Guard Jason Edwards (Vanderbilt to Providence).
▪ No. 58: Forward Corey Chest (LSU to Ole Miss).
This story was originally published April 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
