Malachi Moreno will be back at UK next season if he doesn’t stay in NBA draft
Mark Pope will have to wait a little while longer to see if a major part of his plan for this Kentucky basketball offseason comes to fruition.
Malachi Moreno announced Monday night that he will be back at UK for the 2026-27 season, but there’s a catch. Moreno will go through the 2026 NBA draft process. If he decides to withdraw from the draft, he’ll play next season for the Cats.
Moreno — a 7-footer from Georgetown and the state’s Mr. Basketball last year — made that announcement on his Instagram account.
“After a lot of prayer, and after sitting down with my family and the people I trust most, I’ve decided to take the next step in chasing my dream,” Moreno said in his post. “I will be entering the 2026 NBA draft while maintaining my college eligibility. I’m looking forward to learning through this process, competing, and continuing to develop my game as I evaluate what’s best for my future.
“Representing this state and wearing Kentucky across my chest is something I’ve never taken for granted. If I’m back in college next season, it’ll be right here with Big Blue Nation.”
College players will have until May 27 to withdraw from the NBA draft and maintain their NCAA eligibility.
As a freshman, Moreno was one of the bright spots during Kentucky’s 2025-26 campaign, averaging 7.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocked shots in 22.6 minutes per game while shooting 58.2% from the field and showing continued growth over the course of the season.
Pope mentioned him as one of his roster retention priorities following the Cats’ NCAA Tournament loss to Iowa State last month. Moreno’s decision to enter his name in the NBA draft was not unexpected, but his statement making clear he will be back in Lexington if he withdraws from the draft should bring some measure of relief to the UK coaching staff.
While Moreno was expected to return to Kentucky for his sophomore season, the current state of college basketball — with players hitting the transfer portal in search of bigger NIL paydays — brings some level of uncertainty to every situation.
UK moved swiftly to get a new deal in place for Moreno, who started 30 of 36 games for the Cats as a freshman and would be one of the building blocks for Pope’s third Kentucky roster.
The expectation remains that Moreno will ultimately pull out of the draft and return to college, though he’ll go through a process that will likely include competing at the NBA Combine, which runs from May 10-17.
Moreno is not currently projected as a first-round NBA pick this year, a status he could achieve with another season of college basketball.
Kentucky was already set to lose leading scorers Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen — both departing seniors — before Mouhamed Dioubate, Brandon Garrison, Jasper Johnson and Jaland Lowe decided to enter the transfer portal.
Projected NBA draft pick Jayden Quaintance is also expected to move on from the team.
Those defections left Moreno at the top of the list of potential returnees alongside starting guard Collin Chandler, who could also be close to making a decision on his college future.
Andrija Jelavic, Trent Noah and Kam Williams are among the other 2025-26 contributors who could be back at Kentucky, along with Braydon Hawthorne and Reece Potter, a couple of players who sat out this past season as redshirts and have said they expect to return in 2026-27.
UK has also received a commitment from four-star high school point guard Mason Williams — the son of new assistant coach Mo Williams — for next season, with Pope planning to hit the transfer portal hard in the coming weeks.
Keeping Moreno in the fold was perhaps his biggest offseason priority, though. Pope singled out his early emergence and growth as one of the highlights of the 2025-26 season during his final radio show the day after the loss to Iowa State.
“You think about a guy like Malachi Moreno, who came in as a freshman,” he said. “And what he accomplished this year as a freshman — thrown into the starting lineup … and becoming a force in the SEC, where he ranks probably by most metrics in the top five centers in the SEC. As a freshman.”
Moreno was one of five players to make the SEC’s All-Freshman team, alongside the Arkansas duo of Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas, Tennessee’s Nate Ament and Alabama’s Amari Allen.
There was some chatter in NBA circles late in the season that the Kentucky center could be a first-round pick this year, though Moreno’s production slowed in March.
He averaged 5.0 points, 5.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocked shots over UK’s final seven games, which included the team’s five postseason games. Moreno said in the locker room after the Cats’ loss to Iowa State that he was disappointed with his play down the stretch.
“My play kind of regressed as the postseason came about. So I can never let that happen again,” he said. “And I just got to come back better, stronger, and as the best version of myself. It just shows me that I got a lot of work to do in this offseason. So that’s really all I can say. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and I’m ready to do it.”
.JPG "LEX_42_260124OleMiss_UK_rh (1).JPG")
