Milan Momcilovic pulls out of NBA draft. Kentucky could be his next stop
Milan Momcilovic, the top 3-point shooter in all of college basketball last season, has decided to remove his name from the 2026 NBA draft and return to school.
Kentucky could end up being his next destination.
Momcilovic — a 6-foot-8 forward from Pewaukee, Wisconsin — spent the first three years of his college career at Iowa State, but the 21-year-old entered the transfer portal this spring while going through the NBA draft process.
While he was widely projected as a second-round pick in this year’s draft, Momcilovic made the call to rejoin the NCAA ranks for the 2026-27 season just hours ahead of the withdrawal deadline Wednesday night.
Momcilovic will now be the highest-ranked player available in the portal, and Kentucky will be among a small group of contenders for his commitment. If UK coach Mark Pope can land the talented forward, it could drastically reshape national expectations around his program heading into what could be a pivotal third year on the job.
As a junior at Iowa State last season, Momcilovic averaged 16.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game, but his greatest skill has been perimeter shooting, and he emerged over the course of the 2025-26 season as the best 3-point shooter in the country.
Momcilovic led the NCAA in both 3-point percentage (48.7%) and total 3-point makes (136 in 37 games) with the Cyclones last season. Iowa State defeated Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Tennessee in the Sweet 16.
Pope is still piecing together his next Kentucky roster amid an offseason filled with turnover. UK has lost seven players from last season’s team to the transfer portal. Otega Oweh, the Cats’ leading scorer over both of Pope’s seasons in charge, is also out of college eligibility.
Kentucky has not been included in recent updates to preseason Top 25 lists nationally, though multiple national analysts told the Herald-Leader at the NBA Combine in Chicago this month that the Cats could vault into the top-15 range in those rankings with the return of Malachi Moreno and the addition of Momcilovic.
Moreno announced Sunday night that he would indeed return to Lexington for next season.
Momcilovic acknowledged at the NBA Combine that he wouldn’t have a long list of college options, should he choose to return to school, noting that few programs would have both the available role and finances to fulfill his needs for next season.
“So it’s not like I’m choosing between 15 schools,” he said. “It’s going to be three or four.”
Though Momcilovic declined to reveal a specific list and said his agents had been dealing with college inquiries as he concentrated on the NBA draft process, the schools linked to him over the past few weeks have been Kentucky, Louisville, St. John’s and UCLA.
UK might need him more than any other team on that list at this stage in the roster-building process. Pope has reiterated his desire to shoot a high number of 3-pointers next season, but his roster is relatively light on proven perimeter shooting at the college level. There’s also a clear opening for Momcilovic to play a large role on the wing in Lexington.
In an interview at the Combine, he spoke highly of Pope, who was the head coach at BYU when Momcilovic was a freshman at Iowa State. The two teams played twice in Big 12 competition that season.
“I think Kentucky would be a good fit,” Momcilovic told the Herald-Leader in Chicago. “I obviously went against Pope at BYU his first year (in the Big 12), and I loved how his team played. I think we went 1-1 against them, but they killed us at their place, because they fly the ball up the court and shoot 3s. I really like the way they play.
“And obviously Kentucky last year, he didn’t have enough shooters around him to really coach, I feel like, the way he wanted. But I think — if I were to choose Kentucky — that would be a good fit for me. I feel like I’d be a great player for him, and he’d be a good coach for me.”
There is no deadline for Momcilovic to make his college decision. UK’s players are expected to arrive on campus in early June, with the eight-week summer practice session slated to begin later in the month.
