Milan Momcilovic Commits to Kentucky: Iowa State Transfer Forward Picks Wildcats
Kentucky just won the portal. Mark Pope landed Milan Momcilovic, the Iowa State transfer who entered this spring as the consensus No. 1 player in the portal. The 6-foot-8 wing chose Kentucky over Louisville and Arizona.
Pope is having a moment. The first-year Kentucky head coach who replaced John Calipari just secured the kind of headline addition that announces a program is fully back. This is a swing for a Final Four ceiling, executed with the precision Pope has been showing all spring.
Momcilovic is the kind of player who changes a roster. He was the best three-point shooter in college basketball last season, hitting 48.7 percent of his attempts on 7.5 shots per game. That is not a typo. Forty-eight-point-seven percent on high volume. From a 6-foot-8 wing.
He averaged 16.9 points and 3.1 rebounds in 30.5 minutes per game for an Iowa State team that competed deep into the NCAA Tournament. He was named to the All-Big 12 Second Team. He played in a system that demanded high IQ defensive rotations and disciplined offensive structure. Everything translates.
The basketball case for Kentucky is obvious. Momcilovic gives Pope an elite floor-spacer in a backcourt-heavy SEC. He can play the four next to a bigger center. He can play the three next to a stretch four. His shot threat opens up driving lanes for the rest of the roster. His Iowa State background means he is going to defend, rebound, and execute the small details.
Pope is building a roster that is going to look very different from the late-Calipari era.
That era was defined by one-and-done freshmen who came in talented but raw, struggled to figure out chemistry, and lost in the NCAA Tournament against more cohesive teams. Calipari’s last few Kentucky teams were full of NBA talent and short on basketball IQ. The result was a stretch of NCAA Tournament disappointments that ended his run in Lexington.
Pope is doing the opposite. He is building through the portal. He is targeting upperclassmen with proven production. He is layering in NBA-caliber freshmen as supporting pieces rather than centerpieces. Momcilovic is the kind of player who fits that philosophy perfectly: experienced, productive, ready to start in the SEC immediately.
Momcilovic’s path to Kentucky is also worth noting. He originally announced he was entering the NBA Draft but pulled out before the deadline. He decided to play another year of college basketball, then quickly became the No. 1 portal target in the country. Every contender with a roster spot was after him. Louisville pushed hard. Arizona pushed hard. Kentucky won.
That tells you the Pope sales pitch is landing.
NIL is a factor here. Kentucky has the deepest NIL collective in college basketball, full stop. The Wildcats can compete for any player they want, and they are doing it with a coach who is now showing he can sell vision in addition to dollars. Momcilovic took less than the top-end offer he had elsewhere because he believed in the program.
That is the kind of move that pays off over a full season.
The Wildcats are now squarely in the SEC title conversation for 2026-27. The roster is layered. The portal additions are productive. The recruiting class is strong. Kentucky basketball is back, and Pope is the architect.
The Final Four would be the next checkpoint. The last time Kentucky reached one was 2015, and the program has spent the past decade chasing that ceiling without reaching it. Adding Momcilovic does not guarantee a Final Four, but it puts the team in the conversation.
Mark Pope is winning the portal. Milan Momcilovic to Kentucky is the proof.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
