What the closing of the transfer portal really means for Mark Pope and Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Portal entries close at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday; declared players can choose later.
- Kentucky entered the deadline with eight projected roster players and needs starters.
- Players can withdraw from the 2026 NBA draft by May 27.
The search for Kentucky basketball players continues.
And this week brings an important milestone in Mark Pope’s efforts to fill out his 2026-27 roster with enough talent to be considered a national contender in his third year as UK’s head coach.
The college basketball transfer portal closes at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, bringing an official end to a process that, as of Monday morning, had already seen more than 2,000 players enter their names in the pool in order to switch schools this offseason.
The most important aspect of Tuesday night’s deadline to keep in mind is that it serves only as the close of the window in which transfers can submit their names for the portal. That means any player with remaining eligibility who has notified his current school of a desire to enter the transfer portal will still be allowed to choose a new college at any point in the future.
In other words, as long as a player has declared for the portal by Tuesday night, he will be on his own timetable to pick a new school, with no NCAA-mandated deadline for a decision.
So any Kentucky fans on edge regarding the current status of Pope’s roster can at least find some solace in the fact that his efforts to add to next season’s team won’t end with Tuesday’s deadline. That’s a good thing for the Cats, who still have several spots to fill this spring.
As of Tuesday morning, UK had just eight players for the projected 2026-27 roster: Malachi Moreno, Kam Williams and Trent Noah (all returnees from last season); Braydon Hawthorne and Reece Potter (UK redshirts last season); incoming transfers Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins, as well as four-star point high school point guard Mason Williams.
It’s a solid foundation for a roster capable of competing at a high level next season, but Pope is still searching for at least one player — and likely more — capable of starting for Kentucky, as well as a few others to fill out the group as rotation and depth pieces.
That search will continue beyond the Tuesday night deadline.
The transfer portal deadline
While 11:59 p.m. Tuesday is the official deadline for new entries into the portal, the college basketball world won’t have a full picture of who’s available at that time.
The process for transferring states that a player must simply notify his current school — either the head coach or compliance office — of his intent to transfer by the deadline. The school’s compliance office will then have 48 hours to officially submit the paperwork for that player to go through the transfer process, and coaches at other schools won’t be allowed to have direct contact with the player until those documents are processed.
So while there should be a high level of clarity on the overall situation by Wednesday morning, it’s likely that some of the paperwork won’t get cleared until later in the day — and, in some cases, possibly into Thursday — before the full list of transfer options is known.
At this point for Pope, more portal entries will mean more recruiting options, and those in college basketball circles have been bracing for one last rush of players before the window closes.
As of Tuesday morning, only 11 of the top 50 players in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings remained uncommitted, with Kentucky landing two from that group — Diallo (No. 26) and Wilkins (No. 41) — but looking for more top-tier talent.
A late influx of players into the portal will undoubtedly result in a reshuffling of those rankings in the coming days, but this final wave of transfers could also bring a few layers of uncertainty.
It won’t be a surprise to see a few NBA hopefuls jump into the portal in the final hours as insurance of sorts ahead of the draft process.
The deadline for college players to withdraw from the 2026 NBA draft is May 27, and — for anyone on the fence or not guaranteed to be a first-round pick — leaving the option open of a return to college basketball is a smart move.
And unless such a player knows exactly where he wants to be if he does withdraw from the draft — like Moreno’s situation with UK — it would be prudent to enter the portal and retain control over any possible college movement.
It’s also expected that some (possibly many) players who have already completed four seasons at the NCAA level will enter their names in the portal right before the Tuesday night deadline, despite having seemingly no eligibility remaining in college basketball.
Kentucky’s Denzel Aberdeen was among the first such players to do this, entering the portal — and later committing to Florida for next season — as soon as it opened two weeks ago, though he’s already played four years and was thought to have exhausted his eligibility.
Aberdeen could still fight for a waiver based on playing so little as a freshman, but there’s no clear path to that, according to the redshirt regulations.
The NCAA is, however, exploring an overall change to eligibility rules that could give players five years to play five seasons in college moving forward. There’s no timetable for such a change to be implemented, but it’s not out of the question that the reforms could be in place for the 2026-27 academic year, with current student-athletes potentially eligible for a fifth year.
Such a change applying to current players — especially those who were thought to have exhausted their eligibility at the end of the 2025-26 season — would open up a can of worms for coaches looking to fill out their 2026-27 rosters, but look for some seniors in this situation to jump into the portal in order to keep those options open.
How college coaches deal with potentially pursuing players who might ultimately not be eligible to play next season will be interesting to watch.
Kentucky’s roster situation
There could still be a surprise or two on Kentucky’s end before the portal deadline hits.
While Moreno, Williams, Noah and Potter have all publicly stated — either directly or through their representatives — that they’ll be returning to Lexington next season, Hawthorne has not made any public declarations on his future since UK’s season-ending loss to Iowa State last month.
The 6-foot-8 forward told the Herald-Leader before the NCAA Tournament that he fully expected to be back in Lexington for the 2026-27 season and reiterated that stance in the team’s open locker rooms during the postseason. But with no public statement affirming it in recent weeks, Hawthorne will be one to watch at the portal deadline.
Jayden Quaintance has also declared for the NBA draft, but his stock has fallen over the past few months — from possible top-five pick to, perhaps, outside the top 20 — and he could still enter the portal before the deadline if he has any inklings about potentially returning to school and wants to keep his options open in such a scenario. (There has been nothing to indicate that Quaintance is contemplating a return to UK for next season, it should be noted.)
Pope might have four starters already on the roster — Diallo, Wilkins, Williams and Moreno — but he’s actively searching for a top player at the power forward position and clearly needs more rotational depth to build a true contender.
Big names like Allen Graves and Milan Momcilovic (both NBA draft hopefuls, too) remain in the portal, and neither of those players seems to have seriously started the college recruiting process. The Cats are still doggedly pursuing No. 1-ranked high school recruit Tyran Stokes, too.
The hours before and after Tuesday night’s deadline could bring more high-profile possibilities for Pope, who will remain in roster-building mode well beyond the time that deadline passes.
