ESPN says Kentucky's transfer portal class is one of the best in the country

Jaland Lowe, Denzel Aberdeen, Mo Dioubate and Kam Williams visit Lexington (Photo via UK Athletics)

Mark Pope has successfully reloaded his roster going into year two at Kentucky.

The Wildcats’ head coach hit the transfer portal hard once again this offseason, bringing in six new faces to Lexington for the 2025-26 season. Five of them are ranked among ESPN’s top 100 transfer prospects, headlined by former Arizona State center Jayden Quaintance at No. 7. Only Miami (OH) center Reece Potter was left out of the top 100 transfers. Still, everyone else checked in among the top 80.

Kentucky’s six-man portal group has widely been considered one of the best in the country. ESPN’s Jeff Borzello verified that claim Monday morning when he ranked the ‘Cats as having the second-best portal class this offseason.

“Mark Pope also landed five top-100 transfers, and if it were guaranteed that Quaintance would be healthy for the start of the season, the Wildcats might have the top spot,” Borzello wrote. “They’re also relying more on leaps from rising sophomores and steps forward from last season’s rotation players.

“But this group has the right mix of talent and proven production, and Pope will likely start up to four of the transfers. The key to the season could be Quaintance, who could miss time after suffering a torn ACL in late February.”

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Rick Pitino‘s St. John’s transfer group is the only one ranked ahead of Kentucky. We’ll have the chance to see which one is truly the better group when the Red Storm and Wildcats go head-to-head on Dec. 20 in Atlanta. St. John’s and UK are the only two schools with five of ESPN’s top 100 portal players. “St. John’s narrowly got the top spot (over Kentucky),” Borzello added.

2025 Transfer Portal Class Rankings:

1. St. John's
2. Kentucky
3. Michigan
4. Louisville
5. Florida

The rest of the rankings👇https://t.co/r2QarQ7x17
— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) June 9, 2025

Here is where ESPN slotted each of Kentucky’s incoming portal additions in its top 100:

7. Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State) 6-9, PF, Fr.
25. Jaland Lowe (Pitt) 6-3, PG, So.
60. Kam Williams (Tulane) 6-8, SF, Fr.
61. Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama) 6-7, F, So.
76. Denzel Aberdeen (Florida) 6-5, CG, Jr.