Kentucky's early portal struggles are under the national spotlight

You don’t need me to tell you it’s been a rough week for Kentucky Basketball recruiting. The biggest blow thus far is Rob Wright III’s decision to withdraw from the transfer portal and return to BYU after visiting Lexington. Tyran Stokes also left town without committing, a private, late-night shootaround at Rupp Arena failing to give Kentucky the edge over Kansas. There are three visitors on campus today — Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman, Colgate guard Jalen Cox, and Colorado forward Sebastian Rancik — and Kentucky’s pursuit of Washington point guard Zoom Diallo has picked back up, but good news has yet to come down the pipeline, ramping up anxiety across the Bluegrass.

There are plenty of irons still in the fire, but the fact that Kentucky still doesn’t have a transfer portal commitment over a week after the portal opened is not going unnoticed by the national media. Several talking heads shared their thoughts on what’s going on with Mark Pope and his staff after the news that Wright is going back to BYU broke. So far, the reviews are not kind.

Let’s start with Matt Norlander, one of Pope’s closest friends in the media. Norlander has long defended Pope, even insisting last month that no matter how badly Pope’s third season at Kentucky goes, he will be back for a fourth. Amid Kentucky’s struggles this portal cycle, Norlander is not so sure about that anymore.

“If Kentucky is not a preseason Top 25 team in year three under Pope, after having made the NCAA Tournament as a single-digit seed in back-to-back years, yes, that is a significant problem,” Norlander said on the Eye on College Basketball podcast with Gary Parrish. “And I am already walking back my take that I made on the show, who the hell knows how long ago it was, I know it was sometime in March, where I essentially said, I don’t know if Kentucky would actually fire Mark Pope after year three if he didn’t make the tournament after what he did in year one and year two. I’m now walking that back, Kentucky fans, but we are so far from that ending.

“Kentucky, I’m going to say, Pope finds a way to recruit a roster that is deemed Top 25 worthy, even though it’s not off to the best of starts.”

Parrish agreed, guessing that Kentucky will end up with a preseason Top 25 squad simply because of the budget Pope and his staff are working with; however, Parrish is spot on when he said that the standard at Kentucky is much higher than preseason Top 25, especially in a make-or-break year for Pope.

“At Kentucky, as we know, based on what happened in year one and year two, just being good isn’t good enough. Just making the tournament isn’t good enough. Just making the tournament and advancing isn’t good enough. You need to look the right way, and then you need to be awesome.

“It is not good for Kentucky fans. I don’t know that they miss John Calipari, but they miss having a Darius Acuff, and they used to have them every year. And now they don’t get those guys anymore. They didn’t have one last year, and right now, they don’t have one on the roster either.

“My point is, if [Pope] doesn’t build something that looks — and we’re being generous with Top 25, probably needed to be something closer to Top 10, whatever — if he doesn’t build something like that that looks that way on paper, it just complicates the whole process. Then, when you take the early loss, it won’t just be a bump in the road; it will be an indictment of what you didn’t do the entire offseason, and then it just piles up on you, and that’s how you end up thinking of resigning in the middle of the season. It just can really overwhelm you.”

Rob Wright’s decision an example of Portal Politics

The Wright situation stings not only because Kentucky lost on its top point guard target, but also because it looks like the staff got played. Norlander said that he was told before Wright’s visit that Wright ultimately wanted to stay at BYU, but those around him wanted to drive up BYU’s offer, so they used Kentucky for leverage. Jeff Goodman said as much on The Field of 68’s daily show, noting that some of Wright’s family members encouraged him to see what else was out there before making a decision. (Note that it was also Goodman who said on Monday night that Kentucky was the heavy favorite for Wright, to the point Kentucky’s staff would have to screw up for him not to end up in Lexington.)

“It was kind of a family dynamic, right? Rob Wright never really wanted to leave BYU, but, like some things happen, basically, there were some other family members who wanted him to explore other opportunities. The number was big at first, their ask was even bigger — and they got paid, they got a lot of money, into the [three-million dollar range] — but he explored other opportunities.

“He went to Kentucky days ago and came back last night, and again, I think he decided, listen, I want to be at — the number wasn’t different. Really, between Kentucky and BYU, the number was basically the same. And I think part of it was like, listen, I’ve been at Baylor, I’ve been at BYU. Do I really want to go to another school? This wasn’t so much about Mark Pope and spurning Mark Pope or Kentucky. It was like, I’m comfortable at BYU. I’m comfortable.”

Now, Kentucky will go back to Diallo, but as Jack Pilgrim noted on KSR+, there may be ground to make up there. Goodman claimed later this afternoon that Kentucky could have gotten Georgia transfer guard Jeremiah Wilkinson, but instead, they waited on Wright. Wilkinson ended up at Arkansas.

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Kentucky’s need for a GM

Kentucky’s biggest problem, in Goodman’s eyes? Mark Pope was too slow to build a front office. Kentucky hired Keegan Brown as Director of Roster Management after the season ended, but it may be too little too late for this portal cycle.

“This was absolutely ludicrous. You have all that money. Devote it to a GM that can have plan A, plan B, plan C, who’s talking to all these agents every single day, not your assistant coaches. Not your assistant coaches that are having to deal with this and coach the team. So they brought in a young guy I don’t know, three weeks ago, four weeks. It’s too late. It’s too late for this year.

“So, Mark Pope has to do a lot of this. And guess what? Mark Pope has to coach that team. That should be 90% of his focus as he goes into January, February, and March. So I think that was their number one mistake, to be honest. And again, you’ve got to know who you can get, who you can’t get. Every agent, you’ve got to be ultra prepared, and I’m not sure they were ultra prepared, but they’re not alone.”

As Goodman alluded, Kentucky isn’t the only big-name program not to have a portal commitment yet; Kansas, Duke, UConn, and Michigan State are also in that boat. For now, let’s hope Pope and his staff learn quickly from their first big miss, or they may not be able to afford many more.

You can hear more of Goodman and Rob Dauster’s takes, including their thoughts on Zoom Diallo and Tyran Stokes, below.

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