Butler, Carr and Williams explain why transfer portal players should come to Kentucky
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Game day: Tennessee 78, Kentucky 65
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Friday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament at Indianapolis.
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Kentucky basketball’s postgame press conference was on the verge of ending.
Despite prompting from the moderator, no one else in the cavernous media room located on the floor level of Lucas Oil Stadium had any further questions for Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, Andrew Carr nor Mark Pope.
The first Kentucky team coached by Pope just had its season end. No. 2 seed Tennessee outclassed No. 3 seed Kentucky, its longtime SEC rival, in a 78-65 blowout in the Sweet 16 on Friday night.
The Volunteers dominated just about every meaningful facet of the game in the regional semifinal romp. That much was clear.
But Butler stepped up to the plate and took matters into his own hands when no media members signaled for the microphone to ask any further questions.
“Can I say something?” Butler asked.
“I think it’s really cool we were able to set the culture for Pope’s first year,” the fifth-year guard said minutes after his 158th and final college basketball contest ended. “People have to come in and the bar is going to be set high for the next people who come under Pope. It’s going to be fun to watch for sure.”
Pope — who is known for encouraging his players to communicate and talk whenever possible — had to appreciate that.
Then, Carr arrived with the punchline that Pope will likely parrot often as he pursues transfer portal recruits in the coming weeks.
“If you’re in the transfer portal and looking for a place to go, go to Kentucky,” Carr said with a smile, while tugging on the front of his jersey with “KENTUCKY” emblazoned across the front. “I’ll tell you that much. Go to Kentucky.”
That moment of sincerity blended with levity explains so much of why the dynamics of this season’s Kentucky team worked. For the first time in six years, the Wildcats advanced past the first week of the NCAA Tournament to the Sweet 16 stage.
While that return ended with a humbling defeat to a rival, the foundation laid in Pope’s first season at the helm can’t be questioned, especially given the way he built a roster from scratch.
All 12 scholarship players for the Wildcats this season were brand-new to Kentucky. Only one — fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson — had previously played for Pope.
According to CBS Sports, Kentucky is the only team in the last 20 years to reach the Sweet 16 after returning zero points from the previous season.
A wholesale roster change isn’t expected for UK this offseason. But Pope still has plenty of work to do in the transfer portal.
Six players from the 2024-25 UK team are now out of NCAA eligibility. Those players are Ansley Almonor, Brea, Butler, Carr, Robinson and Amari Williams. Guard Kerr Kriisa could receive a sixth year of eligibility due to his injury issues, but Kriisa isn’t expected to be part of UK’s plans for next season.
Several Kentucky players from this season’s team still have college eligibility and could opt to return to UK. This group includes freshmen guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, freshman forward Trent Noah, sophomore center Brandon Garrison and junior guard Otega Oweh.
Kentucky will bring in at least three freshmen this offseason: Left-handed guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis and in-state center Malachi Moreno, a McDonald’s All-American selection, will all be first-year Wildcats.
And while Kentucky was still alive in March Madness this season, Pope picked up a portal commitment from former Tulane wing Kam Williams.
If all of this occurs — and there’s no guarantee that it will — then Pope would still have four scholarship spots to fill on the 2025-26 roster. Obviously, that number would be higher if anybody opts not to return to Kentucky next season. More spots could also open as the result of NCAA changes.
In any case, the upshot of this is that Pope has work to do in the portal. And his success with portal players this season will go a long way toward building another strong Kentucky team next season.
Reflecting on his own decision to join Kentucky after four seasons playing at low-major Drexel of the Coastal Athletic Association, \Williams pointed to how Pope and the UK coaching staff further developed his game, alongside other players who made a similar leap in competition.
“Just to take that step,” Williams said as advice for transfer portal players who are considering Kentucky, “it doesn’t matter what conference you’re coming from. You see, we’ve got a lot of guys on this team who came from low-major conferences, and just the kind of players (Pope has) turned us into now is just all from the coaching staff and the confidence they give us. So I feel like something like this, you can’t be scared to make that jump.”
On March 24 during the final in-season edition of his weekly radio show, Pope touched on his transfer portal approach.
Just like his players did Friday night in Indianapolis, Pope pointed to the 2024-25 Wildcats as an example of why future transfer portal prospects should consider the Cats.
“Guys have seen the massive success that our transfers have had this year and I expect that we’re going to have great success recruiting in the portal,” Pope said.
