Mitch Barnhart says Mark Pope has 2 players already considering coming to Kentucky

The Mark Pope era of Kentucky men’s basketball is officially underway. It certainly came together a lot faster than we all expected, but this is the direction the program is headed and there’s no time to waste when it comes to building a roster for the 2024-25 season.

That’s even more true when the current roster has already been stripped down to the bone. Adou Thiero, Aaron Bradshaw, and Joey Hart are all in the transfer portal. Antonio Reeves and Tre Mitchell graduated while Justin Edwards and Rob Dillingham are headed to the NBA. That leaves five pieces from the 2023-24 season with decisions still to make, one of them notably being Reed Sheppard.

There’s also the possibility that someone in the portal elects to return or that some of the remaining high school commits ultimately stick around. But as it currently stands, Pope will likely be looking at a full-on rebuild in year one.

Pope will have plenty of ammo to work with though. $4 million in NIL has already been committed to Kentucky MBB. He can bring over some of his better BYU players to Lexington, too.

On that note, Pope is already on the hunt for future Wildcats.

UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart came on KSR Friday morning to talk about the hiring of Pope. In the middle of the conversation, host Matt Jones asked Barnhart if Pope is capable of bringing in the caliber of players necessary to compete for national championships. Barnhart teased that Pope has already begun doing just that.

“I think the proof’s in the pudding. Obviously we got to go get that done,” Barnhart said. “So I get off the phone with (Pope) last night and he already talked to me about two players that he couldn’t get to come to have a conversation with him at BYU that already called him back and said Coach I’ll come to Kentucky. It’s about the name on the front of the jersey.”

Who those two non-BYU players are remains to be seen, but it speaks to just how much wider Pope’s pool of recruiting targets is going to be now. He was certainly limited in that regard in Provo, Utah. At Kentucky, he’ll have the brand and the money to widen his search. The talent he can bring to Lexington will be unmatched compared to what he could at BYU.