Mark Pope needs some five-star players from the transfer portal. Or does he?

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Whether it’s conventional wisdom or wishful thinking, the prevailing narrative at the opening of the college basketball transfer portal Tuesday morning was a simple one: Mark Pope will need to land some studs this offseason.

But is that really the case?

As more players declare their intentions to transfer between now and the April 21 deadline, portal observers will be fixated on the top of the rankings, where the supposed game-changers for the 2026-27 season reside.

While that might be one route to team success — newly crowned national champion Yaxel Lendeborg of Michigan being the best example — it certainly isn’t the only way. It’s become clear that building a roster around the wrong portal star could lead to less-than-stellar team results.

And Pope has been celebrated for doing it differently in the past.

Last offseason, Kentucky spent big on the portal — often simply outbidding the competition for players on its list — and ended up with a mishmashed roster that fell well short of expectations. Injuries were an issue, for sure, and Pope is correct in his defense that fans never really got to see his full vision on display.

But injuries were a major problem in his first year, too, and while that Kentucky team advanced just one round further in the NCAA Tournament than the 2025-26 group, it entered March Madness four seed lines higher after carrying much better vibes throughout the season.

If you’re looking at the portal rankings, Pope had no real “stars” in that first group that earned a 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Sweet 16, results that could have been even better if not for major injuries to key players sustained along the way.

Pope’s first group — built almost exclusively through the transfer portal right after the UK coaching change — actually counted Brandon Garrison, a former McDonald’s All-American, as its top-rated player. Garrison was No. 20 in the 247Sports rankings that offseason, and while he was in the Cats’ rotation, he was far from a featured player.

Jaxson Robinson, who played for Pope at BYU, was a key addition and a starter until a wrist injury ended his season. He was the No. 33 player in the 247Sports rankings.

The starting five by the time the postseason rolled around: Otega Oweh (No. 31 in those rankings), Lamont Butler (No. 44), Andrew Carr (No. 67), Amari Williams (No. 84) and Koby Brea (No. 87).

All five were top 100 transfers, but none were considered “star” acquisitions at the time.

Brea and Williams, who were barely within those top 100 rankings and not thought of as NBA prospects before coming to Kentucky for their fifth years of college, ended up being Pope’s first two draft picks as a head coach after their one season in Lexington.

Oweh was an All-SEC selection in both of his seasons at UK and could join those two former teammates as an NBA draft pick in June.

Butler, perhaps the most important player on the 2024-25 roster, and Carr served as leaders and key contributors in their one season at UK. If not for Butler’s shoulder injury — as well as season-ending injuries to Robinson and Kerr Kriisa (No. 122 in those rankings) — the Cats might even have made a Final Four run in Year 1 of the Pope era.

Ansley Almonor, who was way down the 247Sports list at No. 316 nationally, was a rotation player who came up with some big shots for Kentucky as the season progressed.

The first Pope team showed that splashy portal additions aren’t necessarily needed for collective success. Finding the right players who can serve as the proper fits in an overall team structure is clearly just as important — perhaps more important — than going after the transfers perceived to be the most talented in their class.

Winning the transfer portal

Of the top 10 players in those 2024 rankings, Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier — the lone transfer UK seriously pursued and didn’t get in that cycle — was the only one who made it beyond the Sweet 16 last year. Lanier, who was ranked 10th, helped the Vols beat Kentucky to advance to the Elite Eight, where they lost to Houston.

Only two players in last year’s top 10 advanced beyond the Sweet 16: Lendeborg, whom Kentucky also seriously pursued before he committed to Michigan; and Bennett Stirtz, who played for coach Ben McCollum at Drake the previous season and followed him to Iowa, which made a surprise run to the Elite Eight.

Tennessee’s Ja’Kobi Gillespie (No. 12 in last year’s rankings) and UConn’s Silas Demary Jr. (No. 13) were the only others in the top 25 to advance past the Sweet 16.

Obviously, bonafide stars can help, and Lendeborg is the best example of that.

The UAB transfer was the clear No. 1 in last year’s rankings and a major pickup for coach Dusty May, who built the rest of his roster with smart additions from the portal. His other four starters: Morez Johnson Jr. (No. 26 in the 247Sports rankings), Aday Mara (No. 46), Final Four MVP Elliot Cadeau (No. 60) and three-year Wolverine Nimari Burnett, who was No. 247 in the 2023 transfer rankings and had already spent a year in Ann Arbor when May got the job.

The only other three players to make an appearance in the national title game for Michigan were Trey McKenney (the No. 21 high school recruit last year), Roddy Gayle Jr. (the No. 59 transfer in 2024) and Will Tschetter, who spent all four years of his college career with the Wolverines.

It’s impossible to ignore the presence of Lendeborg at the top of that roster, but there are currently more than 1,000 players in the portal this year, and none appear to match the kind of all-around, game-changing talent that he brought to the court.

Last year, 247Sports gave 10 transfers a five-star ranking. So far this spring, only two — Kansas big man Flory Bidunga and Wisconsin guard John Blackwell — have received that designation.

And if the portal closes April 21 with no Lendeborg-like entrants — a good possibility, given his status as a potential first-round pick had he stayed in last year’s NBA draft — there might not be any transfers who can make quite that big an impact in Year 1 at their next college stop.

An even better example of using the portal smartly came with last year’s national champions, the Florida Gators, who featured a mix of lower-rated transfers and under-recruited high school prospects.

Todd Golden’s 2024-25 group was led by Walter Clayton Jr. (No. 69 in the 2023 transfer rankings). The supporting cast included Alijah Martin (No. 129 in 2024), Will Richard (No. 46 in 2022), Rueben Chinyelu (No. 104 in 2024) and a trio of three-star recruits — Denzel Aberdeen, Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh — ranked outside the top 100 of their respective high school classes.

Golden lost Clayton, Martin and Richard to the pros (and Aberdeen to Kentucky) last offseason, but he added what were perceived to be two splashy backcourt transfers — Boogie Fland (No. 6 in the portal rankings) and Xaivian Lee (No. 29) — while getting back a healthy Micah Handlogten to bolster the middle and an emerging Urban Klavzar to help on the perimeter.

Florida won the SEC regular-season title and earned another 1 seed on Selection Sunday, but its guard play — thought to be a potential strength in the preseason — was considered by the end of the season to be a liability that could cost the team in March, and the Gators were ultimately upset in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

What Pope does in the offseason this time around will be interesting.

Retaining key players like Malachi Moreno and Collin Chandler to play alongside Kam Williams (already confirmed as a returnee) will be an important piece of the puzzle. But making the right moves in the portal could be the difference between a banner season and another disappointing campaign.

And it’s become clear that the right moves aren’t always the ones with the highest rankings attached.

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