The college basketball season reaches its ultimate climax tonight when UConn and Michigan face off for the National Championship. For everyone else, roster building is already priority No. 1, the Transfer Portal rips open at midnight, and the chaos is coming.
For Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats, tonight’s title game shouldn’t just be viewed as an entertaining basketball game. Though I think it has a chance to be special. It is a masterclass in modern roster construction.
Dan Hurley and Dusty May have built their programs differently, but both share a meticulous, precision-based vision where every single player fits.
If Pope wants to have Kentucky playing on this stage next April, here is the title-game blueprint he's gotta copy when the portal opens tomorrow.
The absolute death of 5-star dependency
Kentucky is no stranger to the 5-star freshman. John Calipari continues to run through them with Arkansas. But tonight's championship game shows you that 5-star talent is just a small part of a roster build.
Between the two best rosters in the entire country, there are exactly two 5-star recruits: UConn's Braylon Mullins and Michigan's Trey McKenney.
While both are phenomenal young talents averaging pretty solid minutes, they are merely pieces of a much larger puzzle. These guys are not the foundation of the program.
Hurley and May do not waste their time begging for high school talent that doesn't fit their culture. They know what works for them, and they don't deviate from that plan. Unlike Mark Pope, who flipped his entire recruiting process after one season in Lexington. He went from going after shooters and playmakers to chasing defensive stoppers.
The problem is that it forced him out of what he’s historically done best. Dan Hurley and Dusty May know who they are and play to their strengths always.
May and Hurley prioritize mature, physical players who completely buy into the system over raw recruiting rankings. You have to want to be there, you have to want to buy in, and then you have to execute the game plan.
When the portal opens, Pope cannot get distracted by chasing stars. He needs to chase fit like he did when he grabbed Ansley Almonor, Andrew Carr, Amari Williams, and Lamont Butler.
You do need a 5-star stud, but they don't have to be the guy. They just have to be there to help when a star is needed. Like Braylon Mullins when he drained the shot to send Duke home, or McKenney's 16 against Arizona.
You do have to have a real leader at point, though.
Veteran portal guards are non-negotiable
Both of tonight's finalists went into the transfer portal specifically to buy an elite floor general. I say buy, because that's literally what college sports have become. You bid and buy players to help you win; it is what it is. UConn and Michigan are just really good at it.
The Huskies grabbed Silas Demary Jr. out of the portal from Georgia, even though Mark Pope and Kentucky were trying to get involved. He is playing 28 minutes a night, leading the team with 6.0 assists and 1.6 steals per game. He gets UConn into the sets and plays they need to be in, and he makes sure the right guy gets the ball at the right time. That is something Kentucky did not have this past year.
Dusty May secured Elliot Cadeau from North Carolina. He is logging 27 minutes a game and dishing out 5.9 assists. Again, not a flashy guy. In fact, against Arizona, Cadeau was just 5-of-17 from the floor, and fans were lauding what a great game he played. It's because he did everything else: play tough defense, set the floor, and keep the ball moving with 10 assists.
They were brought in to manage the chaos, distribute the basketball, and lock up on the perimeter. Securing a pure, veteran point guard from the portal has to be Pope's top priority at midnight.
But you also have to have a plan for building out the roster beyond the starting 5.
Finding value where others aren't looking
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of both championship rosters is where their leading scorers came from.
Michigan's leading scorer and most impactful defensive presence is Yaxel Lendeborg (15.1 points, 1.2 steals). He wasn't a blue-blood castoff; he transferred in from UAB.
On the other side, UConn's offensive and rebounding anchor is Tarris Reed Jr. (14.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.0 blocks), who ironically transferred to Storrs from Michigan.
Add in the heavy international flavor both staffs have embraced, from Michigan's 7-foot-3 Spanish rim protector Aday Mara to UConn's European depth pieces, and the lesson becomes clear. You do not have to win all the highest-profile portal bidding wars to build a championship roster. You absolutely do have to win one or two, but you'd better have a great talent evaluation system.
You can not miss when you are shooting your money at the top players. Kentucky missed on nearly every position last season. Guys like Donovan Dent, Yaxel Lendeborg, and Lamar Wilkerson all went on to have better seasons than the guys Kentucky had to settle for.
Mark Pope knows how to identify undervalued talent; he has had to do it his whole career. Starting tomorrow, he has the resources of Kentucky to execute a real plan of program building, not just throwing a roster together.
If he replicates the unselfish, defined-role culture that Hurley and May have perfected, the Wildcats will be back in the national conversation. If Mark Pope follows this blueprint, Kentucky won’t just be chasing relevance; it’ll be built to sustain it.
If he doesn’t, then this title game won’t be a lesson. It’ll be a reminder of how far the Wildcats still have to go. If he doesn't, then we will be making another run at Dan Hurley sooner than expected.