Kentucky’s transfer portal struggles put more heat on Mark Pope, and he deserves it

It was nice, it was refreshing, and it hit just about every necessary benchmark the fan base had for year one. It also wasn’t going to be good enough moving forward.

This is a fan base that demands the biggest and the best, and Hallmark Christmas movies don’t win Oscars and they don’t get standing ovations at Cannes.

Telling Kentucky fans how great they are and consistently referencing how lucky he is to be the most important man in Lexington was never going to be enough for Pope in year two. The bar was always going to be raised, and simply not being John Calipari was never going to be the boost necessary to clear it.

The task got even taller when reports surfaced last October that Kentucky had spent $22 million on its 2025-26 roster, and that the number was the most in the sport “by a wide margin.” Immediately, the target that is always on UK’s back became larger than Pope’s 6’10 frame. The tolerance for another potential “cute, fun, but not special” season evaporated instantly.

Dealing with some injuries?

Don’t care, $22 million roster.

Drop a game you’re not supposed to drop?

Can’t happen, $22 million roster.

Fall short of the ultimate goal in March.

Simply unacceptable, $22 million roster.

This was the established terrain when Pope and Kentucky began year two ranked inside the preseason top 10.

Pope then stepped in nearly all of the covered landmines that were scattered seemingly everywhere across the college basketball landscape.

One of the few things that BBN still loved about Calipari by the time that both sides agreed it was time for a divorce was that he still dominated hated rival Louisville. Cal was 13-3 against the Cardinals and had won his two last Battle of the Bluegrass games by a combined 42 points.

In its first real test of the 2025-26 season, Pope’s Wildcats trailed Louisville by as many as 20 points before ultimately falling by a score of 96-88. Prominent members of UK’s fan media declared it as the official “honeymoon’s over” moment between Pope and the fan base. There are certain games you can lose as Kentucky’s head coach without sending the websites and the message boards and the radio shows in the Commonwealth into a full-blown 48 hour (or more) meltdown. The Louisville game is never one of them.

When the on-the-court stuff goes haywire at a place like Kentucky, the off-the-court stuff suddenly becomes nearly impossible to manage. Pope didn’t do himself any favors on that front.

With the fan base still fuming over the loss, Pope seemed to try and hint at an excuse for the team’s poor performance.

“I’m not ready to tell the story yet, but at some point, we will talk in detail about our pregame experience at Louisville,” Pope said. “It was out of character for us. I don’t want our guys to be run by their emotion; I want them to be able to focus their emotion.”

The message did not resonate with its targeted audience.

Kentucky fans ripped into their head coach for insinuating there was a valid reason for the team not looking stellar against Louisville but not telling anybody what it was. Rumors also began to swirl throughout the Bluegrass State in a way that is typically reserved for if the Wildcats are really struggling during the heart of a season.

Was it a fight?

Did Pope get into it with a player?

Are two players going after the same girl?

Are THREE players going after the same girl?

Three nights later, after a 99-53 blowout win over Eastern Illinois, Pope made light of the comment and the tidal wave of response it had created.

“I’m a big Taylor Swift fan and I just love to leave out these things that keep everybody wondering and guessing,” Pope joked. “It really is nothing; it’s just something about the emotional level of our team. I want to tease it and let it play for a few more days. It was just the way we felt as a team and how we responded.”

Pope quickly learned that a 44-point win in a buy game three days after a loss to Louisville didn’t earn him the right to make quirky jokes again. Not even ones with Taylor Swift references.

The heat doubled a week after the Louisville loss when Kentucky went to Madison Square Garden for the annual Champions Classic doubleheader and got throttled by Michigan State, 83-66. They followed that up with a home loss to North Carolina and a 45-point beatdown at the hands of Gonzaga that sent BBN into a full-on frenzy.

The heat didn’t die down during conference play, where UK lost eight games and was forced to play on the opening day of the SEC Tournament for the first time in the history of the program. Even Billy Gillispie earned at least a single bye in the league tourney in both of his failed seasons in Lexington.

A dramatic overtime win over Santa Clara provided some positive March vibes for about 24 hours, but a blowout loss to a short-handed Iowa State team in round two officially set the tone for Pope’s third spring wearing the Commonwealth’s heaviest crown: It’s time to start showing us something … or else.

So far, “or else” has dominated the spring conversations in the Bluegrass State.

Kentucky was viewed as a heavy favorite for G-Leaguer Dink Pate. Pate ultimately committed to Providence.

Highly-coveted BYU point guard Rob Wright was seen as a done deal for the Wildcats … until Wright actually visited UK. Quickly, rumors of Wright’s visit going south began to spread, and the rising junior ultimately opted to re-sign with the Cougars.

Syracuse transfer Donnie Freeman was talked about as a sure thing for Kentucky for weeks. Then, Rick Pitino — Pope’s former head coach and mentor — swooped in and stole him. Reports that Freeman wanted to play for “a guy that would coach him hard, and wanted someone who had coached pros” added insult to injury.

Tyran Stokes, a Kentucky native and the No. 1 overall player in the recruiting class of 2026, has seemed to be in no particular rush to pledge his loyalty to Pope and the Wildcats despite receiving the full-court press from BBN.

The Cats also lost Collin Chandler, who most believed would return for another season to BYU, and productive power forward Mo Dioubate to conference rival LSU.

During this run of futility, Pope has become something of an internet meme, both locally and nationally.

There are more. There are lots more.

In fairness, it’s not like Kentucky appears to be headed for an all-time disaster of season. Pope has landed a pair of high-profile transfers in Washington’s Zoom Diallo and Furman’s Alex Wilkins. He’ll also return heavy contributors Malachi Moreno and Kam Williams from last year’s team. Those bones should be strong enough to form the nucleus of a team that should once again be NCAA Tournament good.

But NCAA Tournament good isn’t the standard at Kentucky. Certainly not in year three of a head coach’s tenure.

Pope knew exactly what he was signing up for when he agreed to be the guy who followed Calipari in Lexington. The ceiling for the potential good at Kentucky is always about as high as any good in college basketball can be. You are king of the sport’s most passionate fan base and one its most powerful programs, and every second you exist, you are treated as such.

The floor for the potential bad is … well, Pope is flirting with finding out just how low that can get and how ugly things can become over the 10 months ahead.