Mark Pope had success with the transfer portal at BYU. Will that translate to Kentucky?
During his five seasons as the head coach at BYU, new Kentucky leader Mark Pope was a frequent player in the NCAA transfer portal.
Pope brought in 17 players at BYU that previously played at another college, and success followed on the floor.
The Cougars went 110-51 overall with Pope as their head coach, including NCAA Tournament berths in 2021 and 2024.
The former UK national champion was also on track to make the NCAA Tournament in 2020 — his first season as the Cougars’ coach — before that event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. BYU won at least 20 games in four of Pope’s five seasons in Provo.
Now, Pope arrives in Lexington tasked with building a roster basically from scratch: Between players entering the transfer portal, declaring for the NBA draft and decommitting from UK’s 2024 recruiting class, Pope has precious few pieces already in place.
As such, all eyes will turn to the transfer portal.
Despite the distinct context of the school Pope was recruiting to — BYU has a religious affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — he recruited a wide variety of players to Provo via both traditional high school recruiting and the transfer portal.
Among his best transfer portal additions were Alex Barcello (Arizona), Brandon Averette (Oklahoma State and Utah Valley), Matt Haarms (Purdue) and Jaxson Robinson (Arkansas), who led the Cougars in scoring last season.
Here’s a year-by-year look at the players Pope picked up at BYU via the transfer portal, and what they provided to his Cougars teams.
History of Mark Pope recruiting from the NCAA transfer portal at BYU
This includes BYU’s 2019 transfer portal class. Pope was hired at BYU in April 2019.
The Cougars didn’t have any transfer portal commits thus far in the 2024 offseason.
▪ 2019: Alex Barcello (Arizona), Jake Toolson (Utah Valley) and Wyatt Lowell (Utah Valley).
Barcello, a guard, was a bench player for two seasons at Arizona before transferring to BYU ahead of Pope’s first season leading the Cougars. He started 94 games at BYU over the next three seasons, while playing more than 30 minutes per game each season.
Barcello averaged more than 16 points per game for the Cougars during both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. He also shot better than 42% from 3-point range in all three of his seasons in Provo, including a 48.6% three-point shooting performance during the 2019-20 season.
Barcello would go on to lead BYU’s 2021 NCAA Tournament team in scoring.
Toolson, a guard, began his college career at BYU as a bench player before transferring to Utah Valley and playing for Pope with the Wolverines. When Pope got the BYU job, Toolson followed his head coach for a second stint in Provo.
In his lone season playing for Pope at BYU, Toolson started all 32 games he played and averaged 15 points and 5 rebounds per contest.
Between Barcello and Toolson, BYU’s 2019-20 team — which was projected as a No. 6 seed in that season’s canceled NCAA Tournament — had two of its four leading scorers, its second-leading rebounder and its second-leading assist man all come via the transfer portal.
Lowell, a forward, also followed Pope to BYU from Utah Valley. After playing in 35 games as a freshman at Utah Valley, mainly as a bench player, Lowell didn’t play at BYU during the 2019-20 season.
He then only played in seven games at BYU during the 2020-21 campaign before suffering a season-ending torn Achilles.
Lowell then transferred out of the BYU program and later played at Snow College (a junior college in Utah), Portland and Chaminade (an NCAA Division II school in Hawaii).
Lowell was a three-star recruit out of high school in Arizona and was the highest-ranked recruit to ever sign with Utah Valley.
▪ 2020: Brandon Averette (Oklahoma State and Utah Valley), Matt Haarms (Purdue), Richard Harward (Utah Valley), Gideon George (junior college), Spencer Johnson (junior college) and Brandon Warr (Westminster).
Averette, a guard, began his college career at Oklahoma State for two seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18, before then playing at Utah Valley in the 2019-20 season (he sat out the 2018-19 season due to NCAA transfer rules).
He spent his final college season in Provo, where he started all 27 games he played for the Cougars.
Averette averaged 11.7 points and 3.7 assists for the Cougars in 2020-21. He was BYU’s second-leading scorer and second-leading assist man that season.
Haarms, a forward, played three seasons at Purdue before closing his college career with one season at BYU. Haarms represented one of Pope’s biggest recruiting victories at BYU because the other finalist also competing for the 7-footer’s services was Kentucky. Pope told the Herald-Leader at the time how he beat out John Calipari.
“The goal in recruiting is to find the right fit,” Pope said. “It’s not to go to some predetermined guy. If you find the right fit, you’re going to be way more successful than you are if you just see some guy with size or length or there’s a certain number of stars. Fit matters.”
Haarms averaged 11.3 points, 5 rebounds and 2 blocks for the Cougars in the 2020-21 season. BYU’s 2020-21 team — which ended up as a No. 6 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament — featured three transfers (Barcello, Averette and Haarms) who all averaged double-digit scoring per game.
Harward, a center, played for Pope at Utah Valley in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons before transferring to BYU. He spent the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons with the Cougars.
Harward played in 27 games off the bench during the 2020-21 season for BYU, with per-game averages of 6.1 points and 4.3 rebounds. He only played in one game during the 2021-22 season due to a heart issue which brought an end to his college basketball career.
George, a forward, played two seasons at New Mexico Junior College before his arrival in Provo. George spent three seasons at BYU, emerging as an every-game starter by the 2022-23 season.
George played 94 games for the Cougars with 61 starts. He averaged 8.4 points and 4.9 rebounds across his BYU career. A native of Nigeria, George finished his college career with five double-doubles.
Johnson, a guard, spent a season as a redshirt player at Weber State before then playing a season at Salt Lake Community College, prior to joining BYU. Johnson spent four seasons at BYU, including last season.
He appeared in 120 games with 56 starts for the Cougars, and was an every-game starter for Pope in each of the last two seasons. Johnson averaged double-digit points per game in each of the last two seasons for the Cougars. He was a 46.1% 3-point shooter in the 2022-23 season.
Warr, a guard, came to BYU after previously playing at Westminster University, an NCAA Division II school in Salt Lake City. He played three seasons at Westminster, and only appeared in three games for BYU during the 2020-21 season.
▪ 2021: Te’Jon Lucas (Illinois and Milwaukee) and Seneca Knight (San Jose State).
Lucas, a guard, previously played for two seasons each at Illinois and Milwaukee before arriving in Provo to finish his college basketball career. In his one season at BYU, Lucas had per-game averages of 10.4 points and 4.7 assists.
Lucas played and started 34 games for the Cougars during the 2021-22 season. He was second on the team in scoring and led BYU in assists.
Knight, a guard, played parts of three seasons at San Jose State before initially committing to LSU out of the NCAA transfer portal during the 2020-21 season. After sitting out for a semester at LSU, Knight opted to transfer again, this time to BYU.
Knight spent one season at BYU during the 2021-22 campaign. He played in 27 games and made eight starts for the Cougars that season, with per-game averages of 7.4 points and 3.4 rebounds.
He then transferred to Illinois State to finish his college career.
▪ 2022: Rudi Williams (Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, Kansas State and Coastal Carolina), Jaxson Robinson (Texas A&M and Arkansas), Noah Waterman (Niagara and Detroit-Mercy) and Tredyn Christensen (Snow College and Chaminade).
Williams, a guard from Canada, initially began his college career with two seasons at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, a junior college. He then spent one season each at Kansas State and Coastal Carolina before arriving at BYU. Williams played in 34 games with 13 starts for the Cougars during the 2022-23 season: He had per-game averages of 12.8 points, 2.8 assists and 2.7 rebounds.
Williams was a high-scoring bench player for Pope: He scored 25 or more points off the bench on three occasions for BYU during the 2022-23 season.
Robinson, a guard, was mainly a reserve player at both Texas A&M and Arkansas before spending two seasons at BYU and exploding in productivity.
He played in 33 games with 30 starts for the Cougars during the 2022-23 season, and averaged more than 8 points per game. Robinson played in 33 games as mainly a bench player last season, but averaged a career-best 14.2 points and shot 35.4% from three-point range. He was the top scorer for BYU’s 2024 NCAA Tournament team, as well as that squad’s best free throw shooter (90.8%).
Robinson (who was originally part of the 2021 recruiting class before reclassifying to the 2020 recruiting group) was a four-star recruit out of high school and was named the 2024 Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year.
Waterman, a forward, played two seasons at Detroit Mercy before transferring to BYU. He’s played in 66 games over the last two seasons for the Cougars with 47 starts. Waterman started 33 of 34 games for the Cougars last season, with per-game averages of 9.5 points and 5.4 rebounds.
Waterman is a stretch big: He knocked down 37% of his 3-point shots last season, and shot better than that in both of his seasons at Detroit Mercy. He began his college career at Niagara, where he appeared in seven games as a true freshman before suffering a season-ending injury.
Christensen, a forward, played two seasons at Snow College (a junior college in Utah) and one season at Chaminade (an NCAA Division II school in Hawaii) before arriving at BYU. He played in nine games during BYU’s 2022-23 season.
▪ 2023: Aly Khalifa (Charlotte) and Dawson Baker (California-Irvine).
Khalifa, a center, played two seasons at Charlotte before transferring to BYU. Khalifa played in 29 games with 26 starts last season for BYU. He had per-game averages of 5.7 points, 4 assists and 3.7 rebounds.
Originally from Egypt, Khalifa was the 2021-22 Conference USA Freshman of the Year at Charlotte.
Khalifa, an elite passing big man, has entered his name into the transfer portal again.
Baker, a guard, played three seasons at California-Irvine before arriving at BYU. He scored more than 1,000 points during his three-year career at UCI, and was the 2020-21 Big West Freshman of the Year.
But Baker, viewed as a high-scoring transfer portal addition, only played in four games last season for the Cougars before having season-ending foot surgery.
▪ 2024: None.
While Pope and BYU didn’t have any players lined up to arrive in Provo this offseason from the transfer portal, some significant news portal news occurred Friday, just after Pope was announced as the next Kentucky coach.
In addition to Khalifa, Dallin Hall, a 6-foot-4 guard who just finished his second season with the Cougars, has also entered the NCAA transfer portal. Hall has two years of eligibility remaining.
Hall has been a regular starter for BYU in each of the last two seasons. Last season, Hall averaged 9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game. Hall’s 5.1 assists per game were a top-50 mark nationally.
As a prospect, Hall was ranked as a three-star recruit and the No. 444 overall player in the country by the 247Sports Composite in the 2020 recruiting class. Hall, a career 36.2% college 3-point shooter, picked Pope and BYU over college scholarship offers from Oregon State and Utah State, among other schools.
Hall served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines and enrolled at BYU ahead of the 2022-23 season.
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