The Transfer Portal has been open for barely 24 hours, and Mark Pope is aggressively building his board. But a deep dive into the Wildcats' preliminary target list reveals a terrifying trend: he is actively chasing players who cannot shoot the basketball.
Kentucky basketball just suffered through one of the worst seasons in history, capped off by an embarrassing 20-turnover performance in the NCAA Tournament. One of the biggest issues the Cats faced was an inability to make shots.
Kentucky was a 34 percent 3-point shooting team (158th in the country) on just 8 makes a night (138th in the nation). And now Mark Pope is about to load up the roster with guys who struggle with shooting yet again.
Mark Pope hasn't learned his lesson and the stats back it up
Take a look at Kentucky's Transfer Portal targets and their shooting percentages:
Camren Hunter (Central Arkansas)- 36.9 percent
Tyrone Riley IV (San Francisco)- 36.8 percent
Finley Bizjack (Butler)- 34.9 percent
Zoom Diallo (Washington)- 31.5 percent
Anthony Robinson II (Missouri)- 31.4 percent
Neoklis Avdalas (Virginia Tech)- 31.4 percent
Kwame Evans Jr, (Oregon)- 30.4 percent
Dedan Thomas Jr. (LSU)- 30.2 percent
Naithan George (Syracuse)- 29.3 percent
Jalen Haralson (Notre Dame)- 20 percent
The only exception is DeSean Goode, who shot 57.1%, but that was only on 63 attempts. Add that to what's coming back for Kentucky, and the shooting percentage if everyone shot the same would be 34 percent. That does not include Trent Noah or Collin Chandler, who have yet to announce their decision, and Malachi Moreno, who is testing the NBA draft waters.
If Kentucky lands every player they are targeting, their shooting percentage would be identical to last year's team. That simply isn't good enough. Some of them may see an improvement, while some may get worse with more attempts.
I really thought Mark Pope learned his lesson watching scoring droughts ruin games, like the 10-minute stretch against UNC that resulted in a 3-point home loss.
Mark Pope was desperate for shot creators, and he is skewing too far in that category. You can get all the shot creators you want, but if you don't have shot makers, it won't matter.
We've seen this play out previously, just last year, Pope loaded up on defensive players to try to minimize the defensive shortcomings of his first group. The results were middling; Kentucky jumped over 100 spots to number 167 in points allowed, but the offensive tradeoff meant more losses.
This is Mark Pope's second straight offseason of aggressively overcorrecting a specific flaw while creating a brand new one in its place. The blueprint to fix the offense is simple: go find knockdown shooters and properly space the floor.
If Pope insists on building a roster entirely out of non-shooting creators, the same offensive nightmares will haunt Lexington again next season, just play out differently.