Top 3-point shooter Milan Momcilovic commits to Kentucky for 2026-27 season

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky has landed the top available player in the college basketball transfer portal, and Mark Pope’s program will now be considered a national contender going into the 2026-27 season.

Former Iowa State standout Milan Momcilovic, who pulled out of the NBA draft just hours before the withdrawal deadline last Wednesday night, committed to play for the Cats on Monday night.

Louisville and St. John’s were the other two teams most closely linked to Momcilovic in recent weeks, though several other programs, including Arizona, made a run at his commitment once it became clear he was likely to return to college for his senior year.

In the end, it came down to Kentucky and Louisville, with the Cats landing a major recruiting victory over their in-state rivals. It could turn out to be Pope’s biggest commitment yet as UK’s head coach as he enters a pivotal third season in charge of the Cats.

Momcilovic — a 6-foot-8 forward from Pewaukee, Wis. — scored 1,349 points over his three years at Iowa State, emerging last season as the best 3-point shooter in all of college basketball. As a junior with the Cyclones, he shot 48.7% from 3-point range and made a total of 136 shots from long range, leading the country in both categories.

If proposed changes to NCAA rules are formally approved later this year, as expected, Momcilovic would have two seasons of college eligibility remaining, though he made clear at the NBA combine in Chicago this month that he was planning to play just one more year at the NCAA level if he did indeed pull out of the 2026 draft.

Sticking around for a fifth year of college will be a decision for another day. For now, Momcilovic is a Kentucky Wildcat, and the addition will be a major boost for Pope’s 2026-27 roster.

The UK coach had already built an intriguing mix of returnees and newcomers for his third season in Lexington, but the team’s offseason had been largely defined by a wave of outgoing transfers and a handful of missed opportunities on the recruiting trail, with top Kentucky targets such as Tyran Stokes, Rob Wright and Donnie Freeman choosing to play elsewhere after failed pursuits by Pope and his staff.

Before Momcilovic’s commitment, the Cats were not listed in the preseason Top 25 rankings from the most prominent college basketball outlets. Multiple national analysts have told the Herald-Leader recently that adding Momcilovic would likely vault Kentucky into the top-15 range on such lists, immediately catapulting the Cats to national contender status.

Momcilovic will turn 22 years old in September and was widely projected as a second-round pick in this year’s NBA draft before removing his name from consideration.

He’ll be a featured player in a rotation that will also include transfer guards Zoom Diallo (Washington) and Alex Wilkins (Furman) — the Cats’ likely starters in the backcourt — with 6-8 wings Kam Williams and Braydon Hawthorne expected to play key roles on the perimeter, too.

The frontcourt is likely to be anchored by international forward Ousmane N’Diaye (a former pro in Italy) and James Madison transfer Justin McBride at the 4 spot. Malachi Moreno, the Cats’ starting center as a freshman last season, and Washington transfer Franck Kepnang are projected as the main players at the 5 position.

Pope’s roster also includes a trio of Kentucky natives — junior forward Trent Noah, transfer guard Jerone Morton and 7-1 forward Reece Potter — as well as freshman guards Mason Williams and Zyon Hawthorne, a couple of high school recruits that could add to the depth in the backcourt.

Kentucky will be looking to rebound after a disappointing 2025-26 campaign that was plagued by injuries to key players and ended with a loss to Momcilovic’s Iowa State team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a defeat that left the Cats with a 22-14 record after starting the season at No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Pope’s first UK team was also hit with a series of injuries, but that group rallied to make the Sweet 16 — the furthest the Cats had advanced in the NCAA Tournament since 2019 — and renewed hope for the future of the program.

The addition of Momcilovic, who picked Kentucky just days after Moreno’s decision to turn down a potential first-round spot in the NBA draft so he could play another season with the Cats, should quiet some of the fan angst heading into the summer.

247Sports ranks Momcilovic as the No. 2 player in the NCAA transfer portal this year. He was a freshman at Iowa State during Pope’s final season in charge at BYU, which joined the Big 12 that year and split two games with the Cyclones in league play.

“I think Kentucky would be a good fit,” Momcilovic told the Herald-Leader at the NBA combine. “I obviously went against Pope at BYU his first year (in the Big 12), and I loved how his team played. I think we went 1-1 against them, but they killed us at their place, because they fly the ball up the court and shoot 3s. I really like the way they play.

“And obviously Kentucky last year, he didn’t have enough shooters around him to really coach, I feel like, the way he wanted. But I think — if I were to choose Kentucky — that would be a good fit for me. I feel like I’d be a great player for him, and he’d be a good coach for me.”