Kentucky basketball’s Otega Oweh talks to the media after the Wildcats’ 78-65 loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament on March 28, 2025, in Indianapolis. By John Clay.

It’s now been a week since the first Kentucky season of the Mark Pope era ended.

The wait continues to find out who, exactly, will be a Wildcat for the 2025-26 campaign.

For UK basketball fans hoping to see more roster continuity within the program moving forward, no news is good news. And, while the wait will go on for a little while longer, there should be a lot more clarity on Pope’s depth chart soon.

As of now, it still appears likely that Kentucky will return several players from the 2024-25 roster. Otega Oweh, Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler, Trent Noah and Travis Perry all have college eligibility remaining beyond this season, and all five of those players are still expected to be back with the Wildcats for at least one more year.

With each of these players, there are some important dates to circle on the calendar.

The first is April 22, the final day for college basketball players to enter their names in the NCAA transfer portal.

As of now, UK has no plans to make individual announcements that players will be returning to the program for the 2025-26 season. The assumption is that the five aforementioned players will be back with the Wildcats unless they make a personal announcement otherwise.

So far, none of those players have said anything that would amount to an official proclamation of their intention to be back in Lexington, but there’s also no real reason for them to do so at this stage, given their previous comments.

Noah and Perry, both Kentucky natives, made it clear in the aftermath of UK’s loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament that they would be back for their sophomore seasons, and Pope made it clear on his final weekly radio show Monday night that he expects them to return.

Chandler, the other freshman on UK’s 2024-25 roster, has been the subject of transfer rumors — back to his home state of Utah — since before the season even began, but he has had nothing but praise for Pope and his experience at Kentucky, and he’s said nothing to indicate that he intends to leave the program this offseason.

Garrison, the Cats’ backup 5 this past season, has also been surrounded by transfer rumors — and a possible testing of the NBA draft process — but Pope has been steadfast in his declaration that the 6-foot-10 forward will have a prominent role in the future of his program, and Garrison told the Herald-Leader after the loss to Tennessee that he “for sure” expects to be back at UK if he returns to college basketball.

“I’ve loved it here,” he said in the postgame locker room that night.

Oweh — the Cats’ leading scorer in Pope’s first season — has, by all accounts, been overly pleased with his role at Kentucky and his time spent in Lexington so far, and he appears to be a slam dunk to return, if he doesn’t head to the NBA draft.

So, if April 22 comes and goes — the portal entry deadline is 11:59 p.m. EDT that day — and none of these players have entered their names, it means they will be back at Kentucky.

Unless they enter the NBA draft.

Oweh and Garrison are the only candidates to go that route, and neither is projected among the 59 picks in this year’s draft. That doesn’t mean they won’t test the waters, though they also don’t have to officially declare for the draft to receive feedback from NBA decision-makers.

The deadline to enter the draft is 11:59 p.m. EDT on April 26, but players such as Oweh and Garrison can request written feedback from NBA teams before taking that step. This initial assessment tells a player how high he’s most likely to be drafted — or if he’s not viewed as a draft pick at all — and the player can decide from there whether to declare for the draft or return to school for another season.

Oweh appears the most likely to work his way into draft range this year, though he’s not particularly close to being among the top 59 picks, according to most prominent draft boards.

If Oweh does decide to go deeper into the process, he could declare for the draft, work out for and meet with NBA teams in person, and perhaps earn an invite to the NBA Combine (or the G League Combine).

The NCAA’s draft withdrawal deadline this year will be 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 28 — 10 days after the end of the NBA Combine — so a final decision would have to be made by that time.

It’s possible that Oweh’s decision — and possibly even Garrison’s — could stretch out to that date, but a lot more clarity on the stay-or-go decisions for all of Kentucky’s current players should be reached by that portal deadline date of April 22.

Kentucky point guard options

The Wildcats’ roster should be plenty talented next season, with the expected returnees, plus three top-30 recruits — combo guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis, and McDonald’s All-American center Malachi Moreno — along with transfer wing Kam Williams, a freshman at Tulane this past season who possesses NBA-level upside.

UK is still pursuing a long list of frontcourt players in the portal, but what the Cats don’t have is a clear starting point guard for next season.

One early lead guard target — Silas Demary Jr., a former Georgia player — committed to UConn on Thursday afternoon. UK was tied to former UNLV guard Dedan Thomas Jr. in the opening days of portal season, but the Cats backed off of that pursuit. Thomas has since committed to LSU.

Purdue point guard Braden Smith — a first-team All-American this season — still hasn’t put his name in the transfer portal, and each passing day with no change there makes it more likely that he will return to the Boilermakers for his final season of college basketball.

Some other options on the radar are Pittsburgh’s Jaland Lowe and Jacksonville State’s Jaron Pierre Jr., but nothing seems imminent in either of those cases.

Another interesting possibility hit the transfer portal Friday morning, with Princeton point guard Xaivian Lee throwing his name into the mix. Lee — a 6-4 senior to be from Toronto — averaged 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game for the Tigers this past season. He made 59 3-pointers and shot 36.6% from long range.

Lee is likely to be one of the most coveted point guards in the portal and would be an intriguing fit for the Wildcats.

Louisville’s future backcourt

As the wait continues for Kentucky’s roster situation to clear up, the Cats’ in-state rivals have been hitting the transfer portal hard in recent days.

Pat Kelsey’s Louisville Cardinals might just end up with the best backcourt in all of college basketball for the 2025-26 season. They landed another big one Thursday afternoon.

Former Virginia sharpshooter Isaac McKneely — a player who was once linked to UK as a high school recruit — committed to Kelsey, who had already landed former Kennesaw State guard Adrian Wooley and former Xavier guard Ryan Conwell.

All three of those players are listed in the top 15 nationally in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings for this cycle.

Kelsey likes for his teams to put up lots of 3-pointers, and this trio won’t be shy about that. This past season, McKneely was 101-for-240 from deep, with Conwell going 99-for-240 and Wooley at 73-for-173. That’s a total of 273 3-pointers at a rate of 41.8%.

To put that in perspective, Louisville’s entire team made 320 3-pointers this season. (And Kentucky’s made 317.)

A blue-blood exodus

It was a season to forget for Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks, and those bad vibes are extending into the first few weeks of the offseason.

KU was ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll before an underwhelming 2024-25 campaign ended with a 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a first-round loss to John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks.

Since then, Jayhawks have been flying into the transfer portal left and right.

At last count, six Kansas players with remaining eligibility had entered the portal, including Rylan Griffen and AJ Storr — high-profile transfers from last year — plus highly touted freshman Flory Bidunga.

And the Jayhawks were already set to lose their top four scorers — Hunter Dickinson, Zeke Mayo, KJ Adams Jr. and Dajuan Harris Jr. — who are all out of NCAA eligibility.

In all, Self will have to replace his top 11 scorers off the 2024-25 roster — a total rebuilding job for a 62-year-old, Hall of Fame coach with two national championships on his résumé.

Kansas has no transfer portal commitments so far, though Self does have a commitment from five-star guard Darryn Peterson, the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2025 class. He’s KU’s only McDonald’s All-American in this cycle.

John Calipari’s offseason

Meanwhile, another Hall of Fame coach is also 0-for-the transfer portal so far with a roster rebuild on the docket for this offseason.

For John Calipari, that’s an annual occurrence.

Arkansas is losing Johnell Davis and Jonas Aidoo to exhausted eligibility. Adou Thiero and Boogie Fland are both projected as NBA draft picks this year (though neither has made an announcement yet). Zvonimir Ivisic has already jumped into the transfer portal.

What happens beyond that will be interesting to watch.

The other key Razorbacks with remaining eligibility are former UK point guard D.J. Wagner, ex-Kentucky recruits Karter Knox and Billy Richmond III, and forward Trevon Brazile.

Calipari also has commitments from McDonald’s All-Americans Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas, though he has no transfer portal additions … yet.

Arkansas went 8-10 in the SEC before a surprise run to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in Calipari’s first season with the Razorbacks. Will he be able to get a little more roster continuity for year two?

Even if he does, the former UK coach will need to make a splash in the portal.

This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 6:30 AM.