Kentucky's incoming portal class ranked among Top 5 in the nation

The addition of Milan Momcilovic to Kentucky’s 2026-27 roster immediately shot the Wildcats into preseason Top 25 polls — pretty comfortably, I might add. But just how exactly does Mark Pope‘s transfer haul stack up against teams that made a killing in the portal?

Our friend Evan Miyakawa of EvanMiya.com has the answer. Using analytics to back up his research, he put together the top 10 transfer class rankings from this offseason. Kentucky checked in at No. 5 in his portal rankings, headlined by Momcilovic (No. 6 overall transfer) and Washington transfer Zoom Diallo (No. 18) as five-star talents.

There are plenty of familiar faces sitting ahead of the Wildcats, too. Louisville holds the top-ranked spot, in large part due to the addition of center Flory Bidunga, who is the No. 1 overall transfer in Miyakawa’s rankings. Texas, a team Kentucky will face during the SEC schedule, comes in at No. 2, followed by Rick Pitino and St. John’s at No. 3 then Jai Lucas and Miami (FL) at No. 4.

Final transfer class rankings for the 2026 offseason from https://t.co/cegyfz8ykZ 👇 pic.twitter.com/EKqsFNhN53

— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) June 5, 2026

Kentucky’s roster from the 2025-26 campaign saw plenty of turnover this offseason. Out went seven Wildcats and in came six to replace them. Momcilovic and Diallo are doing the heavy lifting on the Wildcats’ No. 5 transfer-class ranking, though. Kentucky’s other four incoming transfers all rank outside the top 400 among all transfers and are considered three-star prospects.

• Milan Momcilovic: No. 6
• Zoom Diallo: No. 18
• Justin McBride: No. 403
• Franck Kepnang: No. 428
• Alex Wilkins: No. 521
• Jerone Morton: No. 660

The only true outlier in those rankings would be Wilkins, who is ranked as the 29th-best portal player this offseason by On3. Miyakawa explained why Wilkins is so low in his system earlier this offseason, basically pointing to the rising sophomore’s turnover numbers at Furman as the main reason he’s not higher on the chart. Wilkins was required to carry the offensive load with the Paladins, which led to plenty of miscues, but Miyakawa expects that to change at Kentucky.

Looking at UK’s outgoing transfers, two of them are considered five-stars: Mo Dioubate (LSU, No. 31) and Collin Chandler (BYU, No. 43). Denzel Aberdeen is ranked 62nd, but it feels unlikely he’ll be granted a fifth year of eligibility at Florida. Brandon Garrison (Alabama, No. 71), Jasper Johnson (Oregon, No. 140), Andrija Jelavić (Ohio State, No. 201), and Jaland Lowe (Georgetown, No. 244) round out the former Wildcats heading elsewhere.

On paper, that looks like a lot of lost talent for head coach Mark Pope. But at the same time, we all saw how last season played out for Kentucky with those guys (outside of Lowe) all playing real minutes. Change was needed. Preseason polls from national media have the ‘Cats looking at a Top 20 projection with this new-look group.