A closer look at UK basketball roster moves as transfer portal deadline nears
A month has passed since the 2025-26 Kentucky basketball season ended, and there’s been no shortage of roster movement for Mark Pope’s program.
A few Wildcats will be returning for the 2026-27 campaign, but most of last season’s team is gone, and Pope has spent the past couple of weeks traversing the transfer portal in an attempt to find the right fits for his third year as UK’s head coach.
That remains a work in progress.
With the deadline for players to enter the transfer portal set for 11:59 p.m. Tuesday and Pope still in search of talent to fill out his 2026-27 roster, here’s a closer look at which Wildcats have already left the team, who will be coming back, and what UK still needs heading into next season.
Kentucky’s roster for next season
Pope has just eight players on his projected 2026-27 roster heading into the week.
Malachi Moreno, who started 30 games as a freshman last season, is the highest-profile returnee for the Cats, though Pope will need to wait a little while longer for the 7-footer’s status to be finalized. Moreno has also declared for the NBA draft. He is expected to ultimately withdraw from the draft before the May 27 deadline, but he’ll go through the process first.
Two other contributors from last season — Kam Williams and Trent Noah — have also confirmed their returns. Lexington native Reece Potter, a 7-1 forward who sat out last season as a redshirt after transferring from Miami (Ohio), also confirmed that he will be back with the Cats.
Another redshirt from last season, 6-8 wing Braydon Hawthorne, told the Herald-Leader last month that he would be back in Lexington for the 2026-27 season — and he reiterated that sentiment in UK’s open locker rooms during the NCAA Tournament — though he has not made an official statement on his future since the season ended. Still, Hawthorne is expected to return.
That’s five players Pope should get back from the 2025-26 team. He’s added three more since the season ended, and all of them can play the point guard spot, which has been a position of concern during the Pope era due to injuries to key players.
Washington transfer Zoom Diallo is expected to be the starting point guard for the Cats next season after committing to UK last week. Diallo was joined Saturday by another transfer addition, Furman’s Alex Wilkins, who was rated as one of the top mid-major players in the portal and could end up as Kentucky’s starting 2 guard while also filling in at the point.
That arrangement could give Pope two talented playmakers capable of running a team with aspirations of becoming a national contender.
Before those two came on board, Kentucky landed a commitment from four-star high school point guard Mason Williams, who should provide some depth at the position. Williams is also the son of NBA All-Star guard Mo Williams, who has joined Pope’s staff as an assistant coach.
Who left the UK basketball team?
Seven players have left the program via the transfer portal this offseason: Denzel Aberdeen, Collin Chandler, Mouhamed Dioubate, Brandon Garrison, Andrija Jelavic, Jasper Johnson and Jaland Lowe.
Six of those players have already found new college homes. The rundown of former Cats in new places: Aberdeen (Florida), Chandler (BYU), Garrison (Alabama), Jelavic (Ohio State), Johnson (Oregon) and Lowe (Georgetown).
Aberdeen, who played his first three college seasons at Florida before transferring to UK last year, has already exhausted his eligibility, so he would need a waiver from the NCAA — seemingly a long shot, even though he played sparingly as a freshman — or a change to the current eligibility rules, which could be a possibility as the NCAA continues to revise its longstanding regulations in the wake of NIL and transfer reforms.
All of the other former Cats will be eligible to play immediately for their new schools.
The only outgoing transfer from UK’s 2025-26 roster who has not found a new home is Dioubate, who seemed on the verge of committing to St. John’s last week but remains undecided. He is expected to visit LSU this week.
Kentucky will also lose leading scorer Otega Oweh, who has played four seasons at the NCAA level and will be starting his professional career, as well as Jayden Quaintance, who has declared for the NBA draft and is projected to be a first-round selection in June.
Walker Horn and Zach Tow, who joined the program as walk-ons, will also be departing.
Mark Pope’s transfer portal targets
With only eight players currently on the projected 2026-27 roster, Pope is looking for several additions to fill out that group in the coming weeks.
Much, perhaps all, of those players will come via the transfer portal, which closes for new entries at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, though anyone who’s put his name in the transfer pool by that time will be permitted to choose a new school at any point this spring.
High-profile players already in the portal such as Iowa State’s Milan Momcilovic and Santa Clara’s Allen Graves could hold off on transfer decisions while they go through the NBA draft process, and it’s likely that some other big-name players will hit the portal before the deadline late Tuesday night.
Pope’s 2026-27 roster could still use a little more star power, but he’s looking for depth, too, and finding the right fits will be of chief importance over the next few weeks.
While Diallo, Wilkins and Williams could start in the backcourt, Pope is still pursuing guards, and a lack of proven perimeter shooting is a particular concern with his current group. Look for Kentucky to add some 3-point firepower, perhaps from a starter-level addition.
No. 1-ranked high school recruit Tyran Stokes — a 6-7 forward — remains a possibility, though Kansas is looking like a potential favorite to land his commitment. Stokes visited UK last week but has not yet set a date for his college decision.
With Moreno penciled in as Kentucky’s top center, Pope still needs a 4 for his starting lineup, and he’ll be looking to add at least two more “post player” types to complement Moreno and Potter in that position group.
In addition to Stokes, the UK staff hosted power forwards Donnie Freeman (Syracuse) and Sebastian Rancik (Colorado) for on-campus visits last week. Freeman could still commit to the Cats in the coming days, but Rancik picked Florida State on Sunday morning.
There were 14 Wildcats who were recruited as scholarship players on last season’s team, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if Pope tried to get to a similar number for the 2026-27 roster, even if a couple are redshirts, like Hawthorne and Potter were in the last group.
That means the Kentucky coach still has several potential spots to fill. So, even with the transfer portal closing Tuesday night, the UK roster changes will continue for the foreseeable future.
