“We’ve got a beautiful Ferrari, and we can’t wait to take it for a spin,” Mark Pope said of his team on media day back in October. Five months later, that $20+ million Ferrari actually turned out to be a used Toyota Camry with 200k miles and negative equity. Instead of making a run to the Final Four, the car broke down in the Round of 32 against Iowa State in St. Louis, 82-63.

That Camry, some days it ran strong, giving you a glimpse of what it could be if serviced properly and all parts were operational; a 78-66 win against St. John’s where all players were available. Other days, things felt off — effort, chemistry, execution; a 94-59 loss to Gonzaga, where effort looked questionable at best.

What went wrong?

Mark Pope returned four players from last season’s Sweet Sixteen roster, including Otega Oweh, who was named SEC Preseason Player of the Year. Identifying weaknesses from year one in defense and athleticism, attacked those areas through the portal, bringing in defensive bigs Mo Dioubate and Jayden Quiantance, and athletic guards Jaland Lowe and Denzel Aberdeen. Pope also added three top 30 high school recruits.

Once the roster was assembled, the Wildcats were considered a top 10 roster and title contenders by local and national media alike. However, there was one large oversight: the Wildcats were bringing in just four players who had started for their respective teams, one of whom was coming off an ACL tear.

While talented, the Kentucky Wildcats were betting that a large part of their roster would transition efficiently into new roles and returnees would make big improvements.

For a few, that did happen. Collin Chandler averaged seven more points per game while playing over 27 minutes per game, and Malachi Moreno quickly took over the starting center role and was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team. However, for too many, it didn’t. Trent Noah, who had rave summer reviews and was supposed to be one of the team’s best shooters, shot just 33.3 percent from deep and watched his role dwindle as the season progressed, while Brandon Garrison’s averages and minutes declined from last season.

For Denzel Aberdeen and Mo Dioubate, both struggled in their new roles, and it took months for them to figure things out and find a rhythm. Kam Williams admitted to struggling with confidence early in the season, and when he started to become comfortable and receive more minutes, he broke his foot against Texas.

Add in ultimately season-ending injuries to Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance, Kentucky’s two highest-ranked transfers, and roles were constantly changing and lineups were limited. Instead of knowing the team identity and hitting a stride in conference play, Pope and the staff were still searching for answers.

While injuries certainly had a large impact, this roster, the most expensive in college basketball, had many red flags that were overlooked. Those red flags extended off the court as Mark Pope struggled to connect with the fanbase as well as he did in year one.

An English major during his time at Kentucky as a student-athlete, Pope has talked about the benefits of that education, which allows him to put his experiences into words. Those words helped win over the fanbase in mid-April during the most attended coaching introduction in American history.

This season, however, Pope was noticeably terse and uncharacteristic in postgame interviews — so much so that Rick Pitino called his 1996 captain in November after the Michigan State loss and told him to get it together, asking, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

In the valleys of this past season, the fanbase didn’t connect with Pope’s message, which only heightened frustrations.

Self-Reflection

Hindsight is 20/20. When the season is over, it’s easy to identify what went wrong and what decisions should have been made.

Maybe you don’t commit money to a player less than a month from ACL reconstruction surgery at the time of his commitment. Maybe you prioritize a different guard prospect that went elsewhere. Possibly the most important, you focus on star talent and shot creation rather than depth.

“We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky,” Pope said in his end-of-season call-in show on Monday. “That was a place where we struggled all year long. Creators deal with pressure. Creators earn guys better shots. Creators make shots for themselves, and that’s a space where we’re going to have a high, high focus as we build this roster for next year.”

Too often this season, Kentucky’s best offense was giving Otega Oweh or Denzel Aberdeen the ball and allowing them the freedom to try to make a play. They made the best of it, but that was neither player’s strong suit. Both are off-ball players who had to assume the role of primary initiator due to a lack of depth. Even healthy, the roster lacked creators.

The evaluation of creators isn’t the problem; it has been the closing of recruitments. Caleb Wilson, North Carolina. Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan. Lamar Wilkerson, Indiana. Silas Demary, UConn. Braylon Mullins, UConn. All players that Kentucky were at the very least finalists for, but didn’t close on and went elsewhere, and made a significant impact.

Every recruitment is different, and Kentucky isn’t for everyone, but Mark Pope has failed to bring in any elite talent in two seasons following a decade and a half of the program bringing in the best talent in college basketball. Is that JMI’s fault? Is that Mark Pope’s fault? The reality, it’s somewhere in the middle. Mark Pope doesn’t have the resume of coaching elite players or getting them to the next level, his best example being Malachi Moreno this season, and JMI is still ironing things out as the official and exclusive provider of NIL services for UK, a unique relationship for a multimedia rights partner.

Elite talent, whether it be college All-Americans or top freshmen, is what is winning games. Michigan, Arizona, Duke, Houston, and Florida, the top five teams in KenPom this season, all have a projected top 20 pick. The previous four champions, since the advent of NIL, have either had at least one consensus first-team All-American or lottery pick.

• 2025: Florida, Walter Clayton Jr. (First-Team All-American)
• 2024: UConn, Stephon Castle (4th pick)
• 2023: UConn, Donovan Clingan (7th pick)
• 2022: Kansas, Ochai Agbaji (14th pick)

Toward the end of his end-of-season call-in show, Pope reflected on his two seasons as head coach and made an interesting move by comparing them to the previous four under John Calipari, which most would agree were below the standard of Kentucky basketball as well.

“In the four years before we got here, we won one game in Nashville. In the last two years, we’ve won three games in Nashville.” Pope said. “Clearly, the seed hasn’t been as good, but in the last two years, we lost to the No. 5 and No. 6 teams in the country to be put out of the SEC Tournament. In the four years previous, we lost to No. 9, No. 35, No. 67, and No. 81 to be knocked out of the SEC Tournament.”

As for the NCAA Tournament, “In the last two years, we’ve won three games in the NCAA Tournament. In the previous four years, we won one game total in the NCAA Tournament.”

While we are picking statistics, how about this one: Kentucky trailed by 10 or more points in 64 percent (16/25) of games against power or ranked opponents this season, 15 or more points in nearly half of those games, 48 percent (12/25), and 20 points or more 32 percent of the time (8/25).

Yeah, the Wildcats had some great comebacks, on the road against LSU and Tennessee, but they should never be consistently trailing by double digits in a majority of games, or by 20 points in one out of every three games. That is what Kentucky basketball has historically done to other teams.

That said, although slow, there has been progress. The journey has not been a waste.

This past season, Kentucky was one of only five teams in the country with five or more top 20 wins and one or fewer losses to teams outside the top 40. The other schools, all still dancing in the NCAA Tournament, with three being No. 1 seeds: Arizona, Arkansas, Duke, and Michigan. Kentucky’s loss came against Missouri, an NCAA Tournament team.

While it’s easy to dismiss injuries, since most teams deal with them at some point in the season, the extent of Kentucky’s injury issues is staggering. In 72 games, they have played with a full roster in only 10. In 56 games against Power teams, that number drops to 5, roughly 8% of the time.

In that same period, Kentucky has played a schedule that was rated a 13.55 average in the last two years compared to the four years previous, at an 8.76. That is the toughest two-year strength of schedule in UK history, according to Mark Pope.

Playing the hardest strength of schedule in a two-year period in the history of the program, while dealing with an extreme stretch of injuries. That context cannot be dismissed. Again, lessons are learned from roster building with every season.

“I’m not talking about meeting the standard of where we’re trying to get. Clearly, we did not do that, but we’re making progress.”

What’s Ahead

That brings us to what’s to come.

Mark Pope is going to feel the pressure at its highest in year three. As well as any coach in the history of this storied program, he knows the standard, as he says, he understands the assignment.

So, what has to change?

First, expect some staff changes. Assistant coaches Mark Fox and Jason Hart are the ones to watch, with the latter already reported to be taking an assistant position at SMU. Other assistants, Alvin Brooks and Cody Fueger, are also on expiring deals, ending June 30th. Though Fueger being Pope’s right-hand man since their days at Utah Valley, it’s hard to see him not returning.

Hart was primarily a recruiter and worked with the guards during his two seasons in Lexington. However, he failed to land several players with whom he had ties, including top-10 2026 guards Jason Crowe Jr. and Deron Rippey Jr.. One can expect him to be replaced by another recruiter, likely younger and with a better feel for recruiting in the NIL landscape.

One new hire has already been announced, with Keegan Brown joining the Kentucky staff as Associate Director of Player Development, a role that will center heavily on analytics and player evaluation. Brown has most recently been the Video Coordinator for the Milwaukee Bucks’ G-League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd, but prior to that spent five seasons on Mark Pope’s staff at BYU as the Director of Video and Analytics Strategy. The potential hire of a GM is still a possibility.

The worry, Pope says the hiring process for the rest of the staff could take up to six weeks. This process, specifically the front office hires, should have been finalized weeks ago, with the transfer portal officially opening in less than two weeks.

Next, Kentucky’s roster construction will start with retention. I know many fans feel the desire to clean house, but it is important to note that 11 of the teams in the Sweet 16 have at least three starters who began their career at that program. Mark Pope has highlighted retention as a big piece of his roster building philosphy.

“Continuity gives you an opportunity to kind of push a little farther down the road,” he said last offseason. “To go a little deeper with how you play and what you do and have a little bit longer frame of reference. So I love coaching guys for multiple years.”

“I think retention is a win. If you have guys that feel the program and want to stay and want to grow, I think that’s a real win.”

This week will consist of player meetings. As it stands, Collin Chandler, Malachi Moreno, Kam Williams, and Andrija Jelavic are the most likely players to return who were in the rotation this season, and add in redshirts Braydon Hawthorne and Reece Potter. That is not to say a player in the group won’t leave, and other players with remaining eligiblity such as Jaland Lowe or Mo Dioubate, might decide today as role and NIL can change conversations quickly. However, sources feel confident in at least five returnees, four rotational players.

With no commitment from the 2026 class, that leaves five to six open spots in the rotation.

Tyran Stokes, the No. 1 player in the 2026 class, is expected to take another visit to Lexington before making his final decision. Once predicted to pick Kentucky last fall, has been viewed as Kansas lean, but rumors of Bill Self’s retirement could change that. There has also been some interest in some lower-ranked players in the class.

Regardless of Stokes, the majority of the Wildcats’ incoming haul will come via the transfer portal, which officially opens on April 7th, and potentially internationally. With the latter, Kentucky has already been linked to Quinn Ellis, one of Europe’s best guard prospects.

It’s too early to give portal targets, but Kentucky will have to add elite guard play with the departures of at least Otega Oweh and Denzel Aberdeen. Even if Lowe returns, it’s difficult to invest heavily in a point guard coming off shoulder surgery, and he will need proven production around him, if not over him.

Malachi Moreno’s development was a bright spot, but too often Kentucky’s frontcourt was too inconsistent, and that will need to be addressed in the portal. With Moreno, you need a four that can shoot and spread the floor, Jelavic could make that jump, but depth there would be ideal as well.

With only one player with remaining eligibility that shot 36 percent or better from three, Collin Chandler, shooting needs to be at the forefront of all player evaluations and how they fit. That is the basis of Mark Pope’s offense.

Pope has often said he recruits players that understands what it means to wear “Kentucky” across their chest, but in the age of NIL and where money and branding are so important, is that still a good approach? It doesn’t sound like he is going away from that strategy.

“There’s no place like this, but it’s got to be the right fit for guys, and they’ve got to want it,” he said after the loss to Iowa State. “At the end of the day, it’ll be all those things that are important. Of course, all those things are important, fit, opportunity, NIL, potential for future growth, all those things are important.”

“But it’s Kentucky; there’s nowhere like it, so it’s not hard to find guys.”

The next eight weeks are critical to Mark Pope’s tenure as the head coach of Kentucky and the direction of the program. His parting message for Big Blue Nation before entering the offseason:

“Come on baby, let’s go win.”