What do the two biggest misses of the Mark Pope era think of the Kentucky coach?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mark Pope has secured two top-five transfer classes since taking over at Kentucky
- Top UK targets Chaz Lanier and Yaxel Lendeborg praised Pope at the NBA Combine
- Despite missing out on Lendeborg, Kentucky has put together a deep frontcourt
Mark Pope has obviously done well for himself in the transfer portal since taking over as Kentucky’s basketball coach a little more than a year ago.
The list of high-profile portal additions — Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, Otega Oweh, Jaxson Robinson, Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance, among several others — in such a short amount of time has been impressive.
According to the 247Sports rankings, Pope has put together the No. 5 transfer class nationally in each of his first two cycles as UK’s coach. St. John’s is the only other program in the country with two top-five finishes in that span, and Michigan is the only school beyond those two with a pair of top-10 showings.
But when it comes to recruiting — at any level — there are always what-ifs.
And the two former Kentucky portal targets of the Pope era at the very top of that what-if list are, arguably, Chaz Lanier and Yaxel Lendeborg, a pair of elite transfers who — after being pursued by the UK coaching staff — decided to play their final season of college basketball elsewhere.
Lanier was a big name in last year’s portal proceedings, and — when transfer season was nearly complete and Pope was still looking for a go-to scorer — the former North Florida star emerged as a major UK target.
A few months after Lanier turned down Kentucky, one of Pope’s assistant coaches, Jason Hart, was talking about UK’s high-percentage hit rate on major portal targets during a preseason interview with the Herald-Leader, which led to a brief aside.
“I think we only missed out on one kid,” Hart said of the guys at the very top of the staff’s list. “He went to Tennessee.”
That, of course, was Lanier.
Lendeborg starred at UAB for the past two years and played in junior college before that. 247Sports ranks him as the No. 1 transfer in all of college basketball this offseason.
That obviously made the 6-foot-9, do-it-all forward a major person of interest for the UK fan base as soon as he jumped in the portal, but — despite Pope’s best efforts — Lendeborg ended up committing to Michigan.
In both cases, there were no hard feelings regarding the way the process played out.
In fact, both players’ faces brightened at the very mention of Pope’s name during interviews with the Herald-Leader at the recent NBA Combine.
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Lendeborg, who was still weighing his stay-or-go draft decision at the time, was quick to praise Kentucky’s coach, even though he didn’t choose to play for him.
“The meeting was great,” he said of sitting down with Pope. “He seems like a great guy. Super genuine, as well. Somebody I would love to be around, like, hanging out with outside of basketball.”
Last week, Lendeborg, who turns 23 years old in September, opted to pull out of the 2025 NBA draft despite being projected as a possible first-round pick. He’ll join a Michigan team that is ranked No. 8 nationally by ESPN — one spot ahead of Kentucky — and projects to be one of the best frontcourt players in America next season.
Lendeborg told the Herald-Leader that the draft process had been much more difficult to navigate than his transfer decision, in large part because he was already close to being finished with the portal before he even entered his name for consideration.
And his comments on that subject made it clear that Kentucky was starting from behind.
“Michigan was always at the top of the list for me,” he said. “So that part came easy.”
Before he officially jumped in, Lendeborg cut his list to three schools — Auburn, Kentucky and Michigan — and that narrowed the playing field for his commitment.
The Wolverines had a major head start.
Michigan head coach Dusty May, who, like Pope, was in his first year at the school this past season, had coached against Lendeborg twice during the 2023-24 campaign, when May was in charge of FAU’s program and Lendeborg was in his first season at UAB.
“A lot of coaches do a lot of screaming and yelling in the game and get in players’ faces and stuff like that. Dusty wasn’t anywhere near that,” Lendeborg said of his familiarity with May. “He was always supportive, from what I’ve seen. You know, he would talk to the player, like, afterwards, in private. And that’s something I love. I really respect that.”
Pope has a similar reputation, but Lendeborg never got to see that up close.
There was also another connection that put the Cats behind the eight ball.
Lendeborg’s mentor is former UAB player Aaron Johnson, who played under May — a Blazers assistant at the time — at the beginning of his college basketball career and has stayed in touch with the college head coach.
“Coach AJ loves and respects Dusty May, as well,” Lendeborg said. “So that’s obviously two connections right there that obviously works the right way.”
It worked the right way for Michigan, at least.
Kentucky’s frontcourt turned out just fine, too. The Cats ended up returning Brandon Garrison, who will be joined by Quaintance — a potential NBA lottery pick in 2026 — as well as former Alabama power forward Mouhamed Dioubate, 6-11 international prospect Andrija Jelavic, McDonald’s All-American center Malachi Moreno and 7-1 Lexington native Reece Potter.
That’s plenty of talent, but it doesn’t mean UK fans won’t be wondering what might have been when Lendeborg inevitably goes off in high-profile games next season.
But those who follow the Cats have already been through that.
Lanier ended up being a star at Tennessee this past season. He finished sixth in the SEC in scoring, led the league in 3-pointers and was one of only two first-year transfers — Oweh was the other — to end up as a first- or second-team all-conference selection.
A little more than a year removed from turning Pope down, he smiled when looking back on his recruiting visit to Lexington and his conversations with Kentucky’s coach.
“He’s a great dude. He’s a great dude,” Lanier said, repeating the line for emphasis. “Yeah, I love Coach Pope. He really saw a good vision for me at Kentucky.”
In picking Tennessee, he stepped into a situation with a guaranteed role. Had Lanier chosen Kentucky, it would have led to much more uncertainty across the Wildcats’ backcourt, which already included Butler, Brea, Oweh and Kerr Kriisa, with Robinson assumed to be bound for the Wildcats if he pulled out of the NBA draft, which is exactly what happened a few days after Lanier picked the Vols.
UK ended up getting the better of Lanier in its first two meetings with Tennessee, sweeping the regular-season series. But the Vols got the last laugh, and Lanier scored 17 points in their victory over the Cats in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament.
Now, Lanier — projected as a second-round NBA draft pick — is a Tennessee alum, but the rivalry didn’t leave him with any negative feelings toward Pope or his program.
“Once I called him and told him that I chose Tennessee, he was like, ‘Man, I wish you the best of luck.’ It wasn’t any hard feelings. He’s just a great coach and an even better dude off the floor.”
