Kentucky Wildcats News: Transfer Portal Watch
With the Final Four on the horizon, it’s now been over a decade since Kentucky fans had the opportunity to watch their team be that close to a National Championship. Instead of playing this weekend, head coach Mark Pope and his program have their sights focused on how to improve their team for next season. After finishing this previous year with a 22-14 record and 7th in SEC standings, Kentucky has a lot of room for improvement.
The team’s best players — Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen — are both out of college eligibility and will not be returning to Lexington for another season, which means other players currently on the roster will have to take a major step forward or Pope will have to look to the transfer portal to find quality replacements of his veterans. As of now, Jaland Lowe is in the portal and is set to leave the team after an injury-plagued first season at UK. Other than that, Andrija Jelavic, Brandon Garrison, Braydon Hawthorne, Collin Chandler, Jasper Johnson, Jayden Quaintance, Kam Williams, Malachi Moreno, Mouhamed Dioubate, Reece Potter and Trent Noah are all pending to return.
It feels like it’s almost a sure-thing that Quaintance will head for the NBA draft, but contributors this past season such as Chandler, Johnson, Williams, Moreno, Dioubate and Noah could all very well return. As of now, Kentucky has just one freshman coming in next season — Mason Williams — so Pope will have to work hard in the transfer portal to build out and/or improve his roster for a third season in Lexington. For Pope and his staff, the time to perform is now.
Tweet of the Day BREAKING🚨: I'm told Louisville is "leading by a wide margin" in the Jaland Lowe sweepstakes. Told the initial offer is right at 3 million. Lowe spent 2 seasons at Pitt before transferring to Kentucky.
Something to monitor. #bbn #gocards pic. twitter.