Milan Momcilovic Picks Kentucky After Long Wait: John Calipari Lands a Major Portal Win
Milan Momcilovic made a Kentucky decision official, and John Calipari just landed one of the most impactful portal players in the country.
The former Iowa State junior chose the Wildcats after keeping the college basketball world waiting for more than a month. He averaged 16.9 points per game last season and led the entire nation in three-point shooting at 48.7 percent on a high volume. Those are not small numbers. That is one of the most efficient pure shooters available in the entire transfer portal cycle.
For Kentucky, this is exactly the kind of get the rebuild needed. Calipari, in his second year in Lexington after the long-awaited move from Arkansas, has been remaking the roster through the portal. He needed shooting. He needed a veteran. He needed someone who could space the floor for his guards and finishing big men. Momcilovic checks every box.
The pitch from Lexington was clear. Kentucky offered Momcilovic a featured role in an offense that will run through guards and create open looks for shooters off the ball. He will play more minutes than he did at Iowa State, with more usage and more freedom. He gets the chance to put up monster numbers in a system designed to do exactly that.
Iowa State, of course, takes the loss. The Cyclones built one of the more compelling programs in the Big 12 over the last few seasons and depended on having shooting like Momcilovic’s around their defensive identity. Replacing his output will be difficult. T.J. Otzelberger has done it before, but losing your best shooter to a SEC blueblood always hurts.
The other interesting subplot is that Momcilovic was being chased by multiple top programs. He had options. He had time. He took the time. That kind of patient recruitment usually ends with the player picking the school that promises the biggest role and the biggest stage. Kentucky offered both.
This is also part of a much larger story about the SEC’s continued takeover of college basketball. The conference has been the most aggressive in the portal cycle. Kentucky is loading up. LSU just landed Mouhamed Dioubate. Multiple other SEC schools have used the portal to climb. The conference projects to send 12-plus teams to the NCAA Tournament next year for the third straight season.
The Wildcats roster is starting to take shape. Calipari has multiple high-end freshmen to coach. He has a veteran in Momcilovic to anchor the perimeter offense. He has length on the wings. The remaining piece is a true point guard, which is the area Kentucky is still actively working in the portal. Once that is solved, the Wildcats will be a top-15 team in the preseason polls.
For Momcilovic personally, this is the right move. He played really well at Iowa State and turned that into a major payday and a major opportunity. He is going to play in the spotlight for one of the most-watched programs in the country. He is going to get featured offensive sets. He is going to be on national TV every Saturday. If he repeats his 2025-26 production at Kentucky, he is going to be in the NBA Draft conversation a year from now.
This is the modern college basketball ecosystem in one transaction. A great player chose the school that offered him the best deal, the best role, and the best platform to develop his pro stock. The school that lost him will have to rebuild. The school that landed him just got a lot better. Kentucky is on the move under Calipari, again.
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.
