Not only has Mark Pope gone for quantity in the transfer portal — having to replace six players who ran out of eligibility and two more who left via the portal — but he’s also gone for the top-end quality talent that is expected at a Blue Blood like Kentucky.
According to PhD Statistician Evan Miyakawa, the Wildcats rank seventh in the country in his “average incoming transfer rating”. Miyakawa gauges talent quality by using a player’s projected BPR (which measures a player’s overall value to his team when he is on the floor) for the 2025-26 season. With six incoming portal pieces, Kentucky holds an average transfer quality figure of 3.57.
Notably, Kentucky is scheduled to face four of the teams among Miyakawa’s top 10 in average incoming transfer rating. Louisville is the highest at third (4.29), followed by St. John’s at sixth (3.67), Arkansas at eighth (3.52), and Tennessee in 10th (3.32). These programs — Kentucky included — will all lean heavily on transfers for the upcoming season.
Kentucky’s six-man incoming portal class (which does not include international stretch forward Andrija Jelavic) is headlined by Jayden Quaintance, who is ranked as a five-star and the 9th-best player to enter the portal this offseason by Miyakawa.
In total, Pope has added three five-star portal prospects, one four-star, and two three-stars. That gives UK an “overall transfer activity rank” of second in the country by Miyakawa’s estimations, which takes into account the quality and quantity of both incoming and outgoing transfers.
Joining Quaintance on next season’s Kentucky roster as incoming transfers will be Kam Williams (Tulane), Jaland Lowe (Pitt), Denzel Aberdeen (Florida), Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama), and Reece Potter (Miami [OH]). If we factor in Otega Oweh, who continues to go through the NBA Draft process, Pope is up to 13 roster pieces for 2025-26. Most way-too-early preseason polls have UK ranked as a top 10 team going into the fall.
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