With Kentucky out of the NCAA Tournament, these are some of the top transfer portal targets
The Kentucky men’s basketball season has, once again, reached an abrupt and untimely end.
The 3 seed Wildcats were upset by 14 seed Oakland 80-76 on Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament first round in Pittsburgh.
Another disappointing campaign has come to a close for John Calipari’s Cats, and this one didn’t even feature a single postseason win: UK hasn’t reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019.
Plenty of major roster moves are now expected to occur for the Wildcats. UK’s 2024 recruiting class currently includes four signees (guards Boogie Fland and Travis Perry, and centers Somto Cyril and Jayden Quaintance) and two players who are committed to Kentucky (wing Billy Richmond and small forward Karter Knox).
Richmond and Knox are expected to sign their national letters of intent with UK next month.
While stay-or-go decisions still need to be announced by Kentucky players in the weeks to come, it’s a certainty that UK will be losing its two most veteran players: Fifth-years Tre Mitchell and Antonio Reeves are out of college eligibility.
Among UK’s talented crop of freshmen and other younger players, several are likely to not be back in Lexington next season.
With this is mind, here are some of the top players currently available in the NCAA transfer portal, and the kind of production they could bring to Lexington if the UK program chooses to recruit them.
The NCAA transfer portal for college basketball players opened Monday — following Selection Sunday — and it will remain so for 45 days before it closes May 1. Entering the transfer portal doesn’t mean a player has to leave their current school, and players will continue to enter the portal as teams around the nation end their seasons.
Other transfer portal conditions include players having a 30-day window to enter the portal following a coaching change and graduate transfers being allowed to enter the portal at any time.
Kanaan Carlyle
A 6-3 guard who came out of the same Atlanta-based Overtime Elite program that produced Rob Dillingham and future Wildcat Somto Cyril, Carlyle is in the portal after one season at Stanford: The Cardinal fired head coach Jerod Haase after eight seasons this month.
Carlyle averaged 11.5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists at Stanford, and came to Palo Alto as a four-star shooting guard recruit who was the No. 52 overall player in the 2023 recruiting class, per the 247Sports Composite.
UK didn’t extend a scholarship offer to Carlyle during his initial college recruitment, but the Wildcats did have interest in him. 247Sports listed his primary recruiter as Joel Justus, who is now an assistant coach at North Carolina State.
Josh Cohen
Cohen will be entering his sixth season of college basketball in the 2024-25 campaign.
The 6-10 forward from New Jersey played four seasons at St. Francis (Pennsylvania) and spent last season at Massachusetts, where he blossomed into a First Team All-Atlantic 10 Conference performer with the Minutemen.
Cohen led UMass in scoring with 15.9 points per game and also had 6.8 rebounds per contest. When Cohen was in the transfer portal last offseason, he also had interest from high-major programs Florida, Iowa and Penn State.
Frankie Fidler
A 6-7 senior to-be forward, Fidler put up massive numbers this season at Nebraska-Omaha of the Summit League.
Fidler averaged 20.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game for the Mavericks. He’s averaged more than 12 points per game in all three of his past college seasons, which all came at Omaha.
Fidler was named a First Team All-Summit League selection this season, thanks in part to his floor-spacing ability: Fidler made nearly 36% of his shots from distance.
Clifford Omoruyi
A familiar name to those who have followed college basketball, Omoruyi spent four seasons at Rutgers and is now looking for a new school for his fifth and final college campaign.
Something that might sound refreshing to Kentucky fans is the defensive ability that the 6-foot-11 Omoruyi brings to the court on a nightly basis.
He was named to the Big Ten All-Defensive Team this season and had per-game averages of 10.4 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.9 blocks for a Rutgers team that ranked fourth in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.
Omoruyi was a four-star recruit in the 2020 recruiting class and was ranked as the No. 51 overall player in that year’s class, per the 247Sports Composite.
Kentucky had a scholarship offer out to Omoruyi during his initial recruitment.
Maxime Raynaud
Raynaud is one of the most talented transfer portal players on the market and would represent another international addition to the Wildcats’ program.
The Frenchman spent three seasons at Stanford and averaged 15.5 points and 9.6 rebounds per contest for the Cardinal this season.
Another talented floor spacer on offense, the 7-foot-1 Raynaud connected on 36.1% of his 3-pointers this season, although he only took 61 shots from deep.
Raynaud was named the Most Improved Player in the Pac-12 Conference this season and was a second-team All-Conference selection.
Taris Reed Jr.
A four-star, top-40 recruit in the 2022 recruiting class, the 6-foot-10 Reed is looking for a new home after Michigan parted ways with former head coach Juwan Howard.
Reed played in 66 games across two seasons at Michigan and averaged 9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game this season. Reed started 31 games this season for the Wolverines. He also averaged more than a block per contest.
In the 2022 recruiting class, Reed was ranked as the No. 35 overall recruit and as a four-star prospect, per the 247Sports Composite.
Andrej Stojakovic
Another former Stanford player who is now in the portal, Stojakovic, a 6-7 small forward, was a 2023 McDonald’s All-American before his lone season in Palo Alto.
The son of former NBA star Peja Stojakovic, the younger Stojakovic averaged nearly 8 points per game this season.
Stojakovic was a coveted recruit in the 2023 class: He was ranked as a five-star prospect and the No. 25 overall player in last year’s recruiting class. Kentucky had a scholarship offer out to Stojakovic during his initial recruitment, but UK didn’t make his final list of four schools.
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