Mark Pope expects big things from this international addition to UK basketball
Mark Pope can’t recall exactly how Andrija Jelavic popped up on his recruiting radar.
“Everything, it’s just, it’s beautiful madness,” Pope offered on Tuesday afternoon inside Memorial Coliseum while participating in his first press conference of the offseason.
But very early in process of recruiting Jelavic — a 6-foot-11 big man from Croatia — to Kentucky, Pope said it was clear to him that Jelavic understood the magnitude of the opportunity to come to Lexington and play college basketball for the Wildcats.
“My first FaceTime conversation with him was actually beautiful. I mean, from the first few minutes talking, I was like, ‘Wow, this kid is really special,’” Pope said. “He loves the game of basketball. He loves to hoop. He wants to hoop all the time.”
Of the 13 projected scholarship players on the Kentucky roster for next season — and specifically among the nine newcomers to the UK program — Jelavic is the player that UK fans are least familiar with.
Just over a month ago, news broke that Jelavic committed to Kentucky. He’ll arrive in Lexington with a significant amount of high-level basketball experience to his name.
Jelavic, who will turn 21 years old on May 26, has played the last two seasons for Mega MIS, also known as Kosarkaski klub Mega Basket and Mega Superbet, a professional team in Serbia.
This season, Jelavic is averaging 10.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.0 steals for Mega MIS across 28 games played. His shooting numbers — 49.1% from the field and 30.9% on a significant volume of 3-pointers — provide even more intrigue regarding his style of play.
In total, Jelavic has played in 58 games for Mega MIS, which competes in the AdmiralBet ABA League. He also has past playing experience with several Croatian youth national teams.
“He’s in an environment where he’s (been) doing two practices a day, every day, for his entire life,” Pope added about Jelavic, who is set to become the second player from Croatia to play basketball for UK. “That’s kind of the background he comes from. He’s with a really good organization that we know. (We know) the people surrounding that organization really well.”
When Kentucky announced the addition of Jelavic earlier this month, Pope spoke about the emotion that Jelavic showed over video call when the two men discussed the potential of him playing for Kentucky.
Pope reiterated that passion on Tuesday.
“On FaceTime with him as we were exchanging calls, the more and more this became real, the more emotional he got,” Pope said. “Like all of us, the opportunity to be associated with Kentucky basketball is a little bit beyond his wildest dreams. And so he was pretty emotional about the whole process.”
There’s also plenty of reason to believe in the functional use of Jelavic for Kentucky next season.
He owns a 7-foot-2 wingspan, and highlights of his play in Europe show a player with the floor-spacing principles that should mesh well with a Kentucky offense that finished the 2024-25 season ranked 10th in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom.
Andrija Jelavic is the latest international arrival for Kentucky basketball
Kentucky fans won’t have to think too hard or long to remember UK’s last, and first, Croatian player.
That was ex-Cat Zvonimir Ivisic, who spent the 2023-24 season at Kentucky and the 2024-25 season at Arkansas with former UK coach John Calipari. (Ivisic transferred again this offseason to Illinois, where his twin brother, Tomislav, plays.)
Better known as “Big Z,” Ivisic’s time at UK was defined by a delayed arrival to campus and a lengthy NCAA investigation into his amateur status. Ivisic didn’t even make his debut for Kentucky until late January of the 2023-24 season.
Speaking now in mid-May, Pope doesn’t anticipate similar issues will plague Jelavic’s time at Kentucky.
“There’s all this stuff we’re trying to get through as quickly as possible. He’s been incredibly cooperative. The people at Mega and the people at his university have been incredibly cooperative,” Pope said. “The NCAA is working hard and just pushing it through as quickly as we can.”
Assuming that all the paperwork checks out and Jelavic takes to the court for the Cats during the 2025-26 season, he will become the 23rd all-time international player in Kentucky program history.
Jelavic will be third international player to suit up for the Wildcats under Pope’s leadership, joining Kerr Kriisa of Estonia and Amari Williams of England.
“I have every reason to believe that he’s going to be just as successful here as all of our guys are,” Pope added of Jelavic. “He’s got a chance to be a really special player.”
What is Mark Pope’s history with first-year, international players?
Over his now 10 combined seasons as a college head coach at Utah Valley, BYU and Kentucky, Pope has brought in only five players who were born outside the United States and made their college basketball debuts under his guidance.
Those players are forward Joonas Tahvanainen (on Pope’s 2016-17 Utah Valley team from Finland), forward Atiki Ally Atiki (on Pope’s 2021-22 BYU team from Tanzania), guard Paora Winitana (on Pope’s 2021-22 BYU team from New Zealand), center Fousseyni Traore (on Pope’s 2021-22 BYU team from Mali) and forward Hao Dong (on Pope’s 2022-23 BYU team from China).
Tahvanainen played two seasons for Pope at Utah Valley, appearing in 40 total games off the bench for the Wolverines before transferring to Westminster University, an NCAA Division II school.
Atiki, who played prep basketball in Canada, played for Pope for his final three seasons as the BYU coach. Atiki was primarily a bench player who appeared in 88 combined games for the Cougars over those three seasons, with averages of 3.6 points and 3.1 rebounds in 12.1 minutes per game. Atiki spent the 2024-25 season at New Mexico, where he played in 32 games off the bench for the Lobos.
Winitana, a walk-on who played high school basketball in Utah, redshirted the 2021-22 season under Pope at BYU before leaving to go serve a church mission. He then transferred to Arizona Western College.
Traore, who played for the elite prep basketball program at Wasatch Academy in Utah, has been by far the best of these international players. He spent four seasons at BYU, three of which were under Pope’s guidance, and averaged 10.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.2 assists across 128 games played for his college career.
Dong, who both played in Spain and had a prep career in Utah before attending BYU, only played in four games for the Cougars during the 2022-23 season. Dong then turned professional in his native China.
Of course, Pope has had plenty of success when it comes to utilizing international players who began their college careers at other programs. This group includes Aly Khalifa, an Egyptian who played at Charlotte before transferring to BYU, and the aforementioned Williams, who played four seasons at Drexel before capping his college career with the Wildcats last season.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 6:15 AM.
