Milan Momcilovic is adapting to his new home with Kentucky basketball
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- One of Kentucky basketball’s top offseason acquisitions is forward Milan Momcilovic.
- Momcilovic previously played three seasons at Iowa State, and was a top transfer player.
- Last season with the Cyclones, Momcilovic made 48.7% of his 3-point tries.
It’s been slightly more than a month since the tenor of this Kentucky basketball offseason changed in a major way.
On June 1, former Iowa State sharpshooter Milan Momcilovic committed to the Cats out of the NCAA transfer portal after previously going through the NBA draft process. Momcilovic’s decision to pick Mark Pope’s program brought needed scoring and star power to Kentucky for the 2026-27 season.
Less than a week after that commitment, Momcilovic moved into the Wildcat Coal Lodge on UK’s campus, ready to get to work following a standout junior campaign in which the 6-foot-9 forward led the nation in 3-point shooting percentage (48.7%) and total 3-pointers made (136).
As the third week of Kentucky basketball’s summer practice schedule wraps up, what has life been like for Momcilovic in Lexington? He was eager to share insight on that question Thursday afternoon, when he met with media members for the first time since becoming a Cat.
Momcilovic’s adjustment process has been ongoing for the past few weeks inside the Joe Craft Center, where he’s learned from his 13 new teammates and accepted the lofty expectations that have been placed upon him.
“I think you have to understand their strengths on how they see the game and what they’re really good at, and then you just got to play off it,” Momcilovic told a crowd of more than a dozen reporters Thursday inside Memorial Coliseum. “I think the first week we didn’t really even play a whole lot of five-on-five; it was a lot of learning, kind of just the offense and the defense, but then I think the last two weeks we started ramping it up more, obviously playing a lot more, and then you kind of see where everyone finds their role.”
Momcilovic is one of nine newcomers on next season’s Kentucky squad after an offseason roster overhaul. He stands out as the most accomplished of the 14 players on the roster, having scored 1,349 points over three seasons at Iowa State. 247Sports graded Momcilovic as the second-best transfer portal player in college basketball this offseason, which is just one of several data points indicating his expected impact on Kentucky for the 2026-27 campaign.
Momcilovic’s pathway to committing to the Cats was distinct, especially among high-level transfers. Pope’s UK program eventually prevailed over Louisville and St. John’s to secure Momcilovic’s commitment, but Momcilovic didn’t visit any schools as part of his transfer portal recruitment.
His meetings with Kentucky took place virtually over Zoom, and included both returning sophomore center Malachi Moreno and Pope, who joined while on a family vacation, among other participants.
“I think being three years in college now, I kind of know what to ask, know what to expect. I could care less what the campus looks like, for real. Everyone’s got good facilities, so that doesn’t matter,” Momcilovic said. “At the end of the day, I think just really learning and hearing what the coaches have to say is the most important thing. We could have done that in person, but it was just easy to hop on a couple Zoom calls.”
The questions Momcilovic posed to Kentucky’s representatives on those Zoom calls weren’t groundbreaking thought exercises. Rather, they centered around fit, roster makeup and learning the truths behind UK’s disappointing 2025-26 season.
“How can I fit in with this team? Are the guys around me going to be real good?” Momcilovic recalled asking. “A couple questions on, like, why wasn’t last year’s team as good? And then kind of just how I fit into this whole puzzle, and find where I can really strive and have a really good year like I did last year.”
Tyler Herro also played a small role in convincing Momcilovic to transfer to Kentucky. The former UK basketball standout — who, like Momcilovic, is also from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area — reached out to Momcilovic ahead of his transfer decision.
Momcilovic’s father, Nick, is good friends with Herro’s father, Chris, from their time coaching AAU basketball together on the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League circuit. Ultimately though, Momcilovic’s choice to join the Cats was his own, and one that was grounded in relationships.
“When (Pope) recruited me, his pitch was (that) he loves playing with shooters, so I felt like this offensive system was good for me, and we wrapped it up from there,” Momcilovic said.
“...Kentucky is a blue blood, it’s one of the biggest brands in college basketball, if not the biggest. So obviously you have to talk about that, but at the end of the day, that didn’t really matter for me. I think I’m more of a relationship-type guy, and I got to trust you. Obviously the brand’s really cool, but I want to have a connection with the head coach and have a good relationship.”
Three weeks into summer practices, Momcilovic is starting to get a feel for how his new team will look.
“I think we’re going to play with a lot of pace this year, which also is going to be another thing that’s going to benefit me. I think we’re going to play really fast in transition,” Momcilovic said. “I feel like we got a lot of creators at the point guard, point/two position, that can get downhill, obviously make a lot of plays, score the ball too. I think we just got a lot of shooters on the team, so that’s going to free a lot of things up.”
This assessment mirrors what Pope has said publicly, although not in a press conference setting, about how he constructed this Kentucky team.
Momcilovic said the first week of summer practice proved to be a learning curve for him. But once he got a grasp on the terminology and offensive approach Pope wanted to implement, Momcilovic said it’s been easy for him to pick up on things. That’s included learning the playing styles and on-court personalities of his fellow Cats.
But don’t expect Momcilovic to be the vocal leader of this Kentucky squad. That’s not his style, and he said Thursday that projected starting point guard Zoom Diallo has been the top vocal presence for the Cats as summer ball nears its halfway point.
“For me, I think it’s just trying to bring as much energy as I can to practice and being supportive. I’m not going to be the most vocal leader. I don’t think that’s my role. I’ve never been that guy,” Momcilovic said. “But I think I can bring just a lot of energy. I can talk. I can communicate. Those things, I can control, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
