Mark Pope is looking to change the narrative around recruiting at Kentucky. He's not only going to go after the top players in the country like former head coach John Calipari, he's also going after local kids.
Pope has been adamant about keeping local prospects in the state of Kentucky. He believes their burning passion for Kentucky basketball is what has made and will continue to make this program great.
"You have to go find guys where the front of this jersey means something," Pope said last month on BBN Tonight. "You can do that in different ways. On one hand it can be with a young man who has been born and raised in Kentucky. Super skilled and talented and they just breathe this in every second of their life."
Pope did such by landing two of the more talented players in the state in the 2024 class -- Travis Perry and Trent Noah.
Now, Pope is prioritizing a major national prospect in top-25 player Malachi Moreno. The borderline five-star prospect in the 2025 class is a critically important player for Pope and what he's trying to build in the coming years.
Because of that, and the work he's done with Moreno in the first few months on the job, he's labeled as a 'must-get' player for Pope and Kentucky.
At this point, it feels as though Kentucky needs to land Malachi Moreno," Rivals national basketball director Rob Cassidy wrote. "Not so much because it absolutely needs him for roster construction purposes (he would certainly help), but because of what landing an in-demand, in-state star would say about the Mark Pope era."
Moreno, a standout forward for Great Crossing (Ky.) High School, is coming off of a visit to Lexington last month where Pope laid out exactly what the vision of Kentucky is and why Moreno is a major part of that.
In total, he's taken three visits to Kentucky just this year. The last one was the only visit in Mark Pope's era, however.
"Part of hiring a beloved figure with strong ties to the state and the program is scoring points locally, so Pope landing Moreno feels like a good way to further ignite a fan base that is already operating with a heavy dose of cautious optimism," Cassidy added. "Losing Moreno to Indiana, Tennessee, Michigan or – God forbid – Arkansas would have the sting, especially if on-court growing pains strike in year one of Pope’s UK tenure."
Indiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Iowa are some of the programs making this recruitment intersting. But, at the moment, it does appear Kentucky has a leg up on the rest of the competition.
If Pope can land Moreno, the No. 22 player in the Rivals150, it'll be a massive win and show he can go toe-to-toe with big programs to land one of the more talented players in the class.