What do we know about the 2025-26 Kentucky basketball roster?
Take a breath, Kentucky basketball fans.
A whirlwind week of roster activity for the Wildcats has come and gone.
Mark Pope and his coaching staff are nearly done with putting together the 2025-26 UK basketball roster, and that group of scholarship players projects to have a bit of something for everyone.
From returning players to highly ranked transfer portal additions, Pope’s second Kentucky team already seems like it will be more talented (and more physical) than his first, which reached the Sweet 16 last season.
The Wildcats are also poised to bring in a trio of first-time college basketball players. And the work isn’t done yet for Pope and company when it comes to assembling next season’s team.
Let’s take a moment to reset the Kentucky basketball roster for next season.
Which Kentucky basketball players are coming back after last season?
Currently, the Wildcats are expected to bring back five of six potential returnees from the 2024-25 roster.
Freshmen guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, freshman forward Trent Noah, sophomore center Brandon Garrison and junior guard Otega Oweh are all expected to carry over from year one to year two of the Pope coaching era at Kentucky.
Garrison, perhaps the biggest question mark in this regard, confirmed Saturday night that he’ll be back at Kentucky next season.
Only veteran guard Kerr Kriisa has hit the NCAA transfer portal from last season’s Wildcats. Kriisa will play his sixth, and final, college basketball season at Cincinnati.
Who has UK added from the transfer portal?
On Friday, Kentucky formally announced the addition of four players from the transfer portal for next season’s UK team.
Those players are former Alabama sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate, former Pittsburgh sophomore guard Jaland Lowe, former Arizona State freshman big man Jayden Quaintance and former Tulane freshman wing Kam Williams.
In the 247Sports transfer portal rankings, Dioubate ranks No. 53, Lowe ranks No. 29, Quaintance ranks No. 10 and Williams ranks No. 36.
Which recruits are coming to Kentucky for the 2025-26 season?
Kentucky has three first-year college basketball players lined up for next season.
Two of these players will arrive in Lexington via the traditional high school recruiting route. They are left-handed guard Jasper Johnson and in-state center Malachi Moreno.
Both Johnson and Moreno are five-star prospects. Moreno recently won the Kentucky high school Sweet 16 state championship with Great Crossing (Georgetown). Moreno was also a McDonald’s All-American this year.
Previously, top-30 high school recruit Acaden Lewis, a guard, was signed to play at Kentucky next season. But Lewis decommitted from the Wildcats last Thursday night.
Additionally, Kentucky got a surprise commitment Saturday afternoon from Andrija Jelavic, a 6-foot-11 Croatian big man.
Jelavic — a power forward who will turn 21 years old in May — is considered one of the top European prospects opting to play college basketball next season. He’s played two seasons for Mega MIS, also known as Kosarkaski klub Mega Basket and Mega Superbet, a professional team based in Serbia.
Who else is UK targeting for next season’s team?
Pope and the Wildcats are still looking to add to next season’s roster. Specifically, UK is focused on adding one more guard.
The top candidate right now is former Sam Houston guard Lamar Wilkerson, who is currently on a recruiting visit to UK. Wilkerson is also considering Auburn, Indiana and Ole Miss out of the transfer portal. He averaged 20.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game for Sam Houston last season.
Kentucky is also expected to get a Wednesday visit from Braydon Hawthorne, a four-star high school recruit in the 2025 recruiting class. Hawthorne was previously signed to play at West Virginia, but he reopened his recruitment last month after former Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries left to become the new head coach at Indiana.
According to 247Sports, Hawthorne has already taken a visit and met with the new West Virginia staff, led by head coach Ross Hodge. Hawthorne is also in talks to take recruiting visits to Michigan and Virginia Tech.
Kentucky is also still involved in the recruitment of fellow class of 2025 recruit Nate Ament, a five-star power forward from Virginia. Ament is down to five schools in his college recruitment: Arkansas, Duke, Kentucky, Louisville and Tennessee.
Ament is ranked as the No. 4 player in the 2025 recruiting class, and he’s the top uncommitted prospect left in this year’s high school recruiting group.
A variety of transfer portal targets have seemingly come and gone for the Wildcats in recent weeks, including the likes of Indiana forward Mackenzie Mgbako, Jacksonville State senior guard Jaron Pierre Jr. and Robert Morris sophomore forward Alvaro Folgueiras, among others.
