How much will Mark Pope rely on the transfer portal at Kentucky?

Mark Pope is going to use the transfer portal at Kentucky.

Kentucky head coach Mark Pope cheers on La Familia against Herd That in the Lexington Regional Final of the TBT. July 23, 2024 / Scott Utterback/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK

Coach Mark Pope's first goal for when he got to Kentucky was to put together a solid roster for the 2024-25 season. He did just that mostly by utilizing the transfer portal to bring in some elite players who have a lot of college basketball experience.

Nine of the players on this current Kentucky roster came from the transfer portal, so this team is going to be full of new faces.

The question going forward is how much Coach Pope will use the transfer portal during his time as the head coach at Kentucky. More than likely, the goal for Coach Pope on a year-to-year basis will be to bring in players both from high school and the transfer portal. He will try to recruit elite one-and-done players but also will go after the type of guys who will stick around for a while and play a role for many years.

At a recent press conference, Coach Pope talked about how the most important thing they are working on is making sure these players quickly build a connection on and off the floor. This seems to be going really well for this team, but it isn't always as easy as Coach Pope has made it look.

Coach Pope is going to add players via the transfer portal every single off-season, but he won't ever likely bring in as many transfers as he did this off-season.

Coach Pope is going to start landing some elite talent in the high school ranks to give his future roster a solid balance of elite young players and veteran transfers.