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 guard Otega Oweh led the Wildcats in scoring this past season and could be back for one more year with Mark Pope’s program.
Kentucky guard Otega Oweh led the Wildcats in sco