LEXINGTON, Ky. – The moment Mark Pope needed most, he finally delivered. Milan Momcilovic, the 6-foot-8 forward who shot 48.7 percent from three-point range at Iowa State last season – the highest mark in college basketball – announced Monday night that he was committing to the Kentucky Wildcats, ending a weeks-long courtship that had the program’s fan base and its head coach under a pressure neither could fully conceal.
He arrives in Lexington on Saturday.
The price tag was anything but modest. According to CBS Sports, Momcilovic’s NIL arrangement with Kentucky is in the neighborhood of $6 million – a figure that, if accurate, would make him one of the three or four highest-paid players in men’s college basketball next season. Journalist Adam Zagoria, who first reported the number, put the deal at north of that mark. At a time when top-of-market big men were already commanding figures in the low seven figures, this positions Kentucky not just as a destination program but as a program willing to spend like one.
For Pope, this was not a luxury. It was a lifeline. After multiple high-profile misses in the transfer portal this cycle – including misses on prospects who chose rival programs – the Wildcats head coach had spent much of the spring under scrutiny from a fan base that measures success in March results and roster names. Momcilovic’s commitment to Kentucky over Louisville and Arizona – with St. John’s dropping out of contention once it landed Baylor transfer Tounde Yessoufou – has, at least temporarily, quieted those concerns.
The basketball case for Momcilovic is not complicated. In three seasons at Iowa State, he built one of the more statistically unusual resumes in recent college basketball memory. Last season alone, he knocked down 136 three-pointers, the most in the nation, while attempting 7.5 per game and converting at 48.7 percent – a figure that led the country and, by some measures, was the most efficient three-point shooting season by a high-volume player the sport had seen in years. His scoring average of 16.9 points per game came on 50.6 percent shooting overall. He earned second-team All-Big 12 honors and had four games in which he made eight three-pointers, including a 28-point performance against Arizona in the Big 12 tournament final.
He chose Kentucky knowing it had faced him in the tournament. In March, Iowa State eliminated the Wildcats in the Round of 32, with Momcilovic contributing 20 points on 4-of-9 from three. Pope, who coached against him that day, told KSR he came away impressed. “Really, really impressive,” Pope said of watching Momcilovic shoot during that game.
Momcilovic had entered the NBA Draft in April alongside his transfer portal declaration, giving him maximum leverage over both paths. At the NBA Combine in Chicago, he measured 6-foot-8 without shoes, with a 6-foot-9-and-a-quarter wingspan and a listed weight of 218 pounds. One NBA source at the combine told ZagsBlog he was projected to the second round. That projection, not a first-round promise, was ultimately the deciding variable: the money on offer in Lexington was better than a second-round guarantee in the NBA.
Whether that calculus holds up depends on what Momcilovic does with his year at Kentucky. He retains at least one season of eligibility and potentially two, pending the outcome of the proposed “5-in-5” eligibility model the NCAA is expected to vote on. If it passes, the door for another season remains open. If it doesn’t, he enters the 2027 Draft with a Kentucky season – and, presumably, a better draft grade – behind him.
His pairing with center Malachi Moreno, who withdrew from the same draft cycle to return to Kentucky, gives Pope one of the more credible frontcourts in the Southeastern Conference heading into 2026-27. Moreno himself told KSR he believed Momcilovic fits Pope’s offense “perfectly.” The most memorable shot of the 2026 NCAA Tournament belonged to Connecticut, not Kentucky – but the Wildcats are building a roster that intends to make the next tournament’s ending feel different.
What remains unclear is where exactly Kentucky slots in the preseason hierarchy. The Big Ten’s mid-season landscape offered its own quality benchmarks, and the SEC is unlikely to be short of competition. Louisville, which spent aggressively in its own portal cycle, reportedly exceeded $20 million on roster construction for next season, per CBS Sports. Arizona fell out of the Momcilovic race for financial reasons. The gap between the Wildcats and those programs – in talent, in resources, in expectations – is narrower than the recruiting calendar suggests.
Momcilovic also brings a lineage worth noting. He is of Serbian descent, grew up in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, and was Wisconsin’s Mr. Basketball before arriving at Iowa State as a four-star recruit in 2023. His high school coach, David Burkemper, told KSR he believed Kentucky was the right fit from the moment the decision was announced. “In this day and age of college hoops and NIL,” Burkemper said, “he put himself in a position to go to a great place.”
Pope now has his answer to the question that shadowed his first two seasons in Lexington. What he does with it is the question that starts now.
