Kentucky men’s basketball players Collin Chandler, Jasper Johnson, Andrija Jelavić, Brandon Garrison and Kam Williams reflect on the 2025-26 season. From the locker room media availability Sunday afternoon after No. 7 seed UK’s season-ending loss to No. 2 seed Iowa State in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
During his final radio show of the 2025-26 season, UK basketball coach Mark Pope said he believes the Kentucky program has adequate money through NIL and revenue sharing to build its roster for the 2026-27 season.
“You could not ask for a more supportive administration,” Pope said Monday night. “The President is supportive. BBN is incredibly supportive. We will have everything that we need to go put together the roster that we want to have.”
Pope also discussed his roster construction and transfer portal plans for the offseason during a spirited edition of the weekly radio show, which is hosted by UK radio play-by-play voice Tom Leach.
The Cats’ 2025-26 season — Pope’s second in charge of his alma mater — ended Sunday evening with an 82-63 loss to Iowa State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in St. Louis.
On Monday, Pope cited a metric that categorizes players on a roster as a creator, a dual-threat option or a user, which Pope defined as a “finisher of possessions.” Pope said UK will put a premium on identifying creators for next season’s roster.
“We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky,” Pope said. “Creators are people that earn shots for teammates and can go earn shots for themselves… The best teams are creator-rich.”
Pope pointed to changes last offseason in UK’s expected point guard depth — specifically the departures of high school recruit Acaden Lewis and in-state freshman Travis Perry — as reasons why UK lacked enough creators this season. This became an issue because projected starting point guard Jaland Lowe played only nine games due to a series of right shoulder injuries that required season-ending surgery.
“Unfortunately for us, due in large part to the changes that we underwent at the point guard spot, that was a place where we struggled all year long,” Pope said. “Creators deal with pressure. Creators earn guys better shots. Creators make shots for themselves. That’s a space where we’re going to have a high, high focus as we build this roster for next season.”
About five minutes later, Pope circled back to the importance of having enough creators on next season’s team.
“Us having more players that actually fill on the creative — not the dual role, or the user role — but on the creative side of it is really important,” Pope said. That’ll be something to watch as Pope navigates the NCAA transfer portal for a third time as the UK coach. The portal opens April 7 and will remain open until April 21. But players are already making their intentions to transfer known.
On Monday, Pope described navigating the transfer portal and identifying potential fits at Kentucky as “a fascinating process.” He cited the individual play of some members of the 2025-26 UK team — such as Denzel Aberdeen, Otega Oweh, Collin Chandler and Malachi Moreno — as a pitch to potential portal additions.
“It’s pretty exciting to see how these guys are growing,” Pope said. “So when we talk about building this roster, going out and recruiting, we talk about that all the time. Then our guys can see the numbers, they can see what our guys are actually doing, how they’re performing, which is exciting. Of course, getting to do it here at Kentucky is like nowhere else. Those are pieces that go into us putting together this next roster, which is going to be terrific.”
There’s expected to be room this offseason at Kentucky for newcomers. From this season’s roster, Aberdeen and Oweh are seniors who are out of college eligibility. Sophomore forward Jayden Quaintance is expected to depart for the NBA. That leaves 11 players who have the option to return to play at Kentucky next season. Not all of them will, though.
“For me, what I’m doing is kind of giving the guys a day, really two days, to breathe, decompress and we’ll start those conversations (about the future) in earnest and see where we end up,” Pope said. “In this time of college basketball, everyone’s got to make a decision about what’s going to work best for them and how they want to do it and where they want to do it.”
Pope also acknowledged the financial realities that come with roster management in modern-day college hoops.
“Retention is an important piece, but you know with cap management now it all falls under that window,” Pope said. “Everything is dependent on how it fits into a cap, also.”
Pope added that he hopes to make progress with possible player retention from the 2025-26 roster “as quickly and early as we can.”
As things currently stand, potential returnees and transfer portal pickups are the only players in the picture for Kentucky. Pope doesn’t have a commitment from any high school recruit in the 2026 class. The Cats are still considered to be in the mix for top-ranked recruit Tyran Stokes, but Pope’s program has struck out with a number of other highly-touted prospects. The latest loss for Pope on the recruiting trail came last week, when five-star power forward Christian Collins committed to Southern California over Kentucky and Louisville.
“We’re really excited about where we are,” Pope said. “Just hang in there, guys. Hang in there with us. I think recruiting is going to work out just great.”
Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope calls out instructions to his team during a game against Santa Clara in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Mo., on Friday, March 20, 2026.
