Kentucky’s lead recruiter for No. 1 basketball prospect is leaving the program
Kentucky assistant coach Jason Hart will not return to the program for the 2026-27 season.
Hart, whose contract was set to expire this summer, will be named the associate head coach at SMU after two seasons with the Cats. The move was first reported by Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports on Tuesday night.
UK head coach Mark Pope made Hart one of his first hires after taking the job in April 2024, and the former NBA point guard signed a two-year contract with the university. Hart helped put together the roster for Pope’s first UK team in the earliest days of his tenure, and he was a main position coach for the team’s guards over the past two years.
He was also the lead recruiter on Kentucky’s staff for Tyran Stokes, who is ranked as the No. 1 overall prospect in the 2026 class and remains a major target for Pope as he constructs his roster for the 2026-27 season.
Stokes — a 6-foot-7 small forward — has long been regarded as the top prospect in his class, and Kentucky currently has zero recruits from the high school ranks for next season. Stokes is from Louisville, though he started his senior year of high school in California before transferring to Rainier Beach in Seattle, where he was visited by UK coaches over the course of the season.
Kentucky will remain a contender in Stokes’ recruitment. There is no timetable for his college decision, and several other major programs are also pursuing him.
Hart was also UK’s initial connection to G League guard Dink Pate, who is expected to be granted college eligibility by the NCAA and has been a recruit of interest for the Cats in recent weeks. Pate jumped straight from high school to the G League Ignite team, which was coached by Hart at the time.
Pope was briefly NBA teammates with Hart, who starred at Syracuse in college and went on to play 10 seasons in the league.
After his playing career, Hart coached AAU and high school basketball in his native Los Angeles before spending one season as an assistant at Pepperdine and then joining the staff at Southern Cal under head coach Andy Enfield, who is now the coach at SMU.
Hart ultimately spent eight seasons with Enfield at USC, rising to the level of associate head coach by the end of his tenure. He left the Trojans to become the head coach at G League Ignite, a team that featured star recruits who jumped straight from high school to the NBA’s developmental league.
Hart, 47, signed a two-year deal with UK for $500,000 last season and $525,000 this season.
A shakeup to Pope’s group of five assistant coaches was expected following Kentucky’s 22-14 season, which ended Sunday with an 82-63 loss to Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament round of 32.
Hart was one of four assistant coaches on expiring contracts this season. Associate head coach Alvin Brooks III, who was the top assistant at Baylor when Pope hired him, and assistant coach Cody Fueger — on staff with Pope for all 11 of his seasons as a college head coach — also both signed two-year deals when they joined the program in 2024.
Associate coach Mark Fox signed a one-year deal before each of the past two seasons. Assistant coach Mikhail McLean signed a one-year contract before the 2024-25 season and received a two-year extension last offseason. He is the only member of Pope’s staff that is currently signed through the 2026-27 season.
