As soon as Mark Pope accepted the job to coach his alma mater, he went into roster-building mode. The new Kentucky head basketball coach has spent his first days on the job contacting dozens of players in the transfer portal, but there\u2019s one player from the high school ranks who could be a difference-maker for the Wildcats. <\/p>\n
According to KSR\u2019s Matt Jones<\/a>, Mark Pope had Zoom call Wednesday evening with Liam McNeeley<\/a><\/strong>. A McDonald\u2019s All-American, McNeeley is the top uncommitted player in the 2025 recruiting class. He\u2019s the No. 15 overall player and sixth-ranked small forward in America. <\/p>\n A 6-foot-7 swingman from Montverde Academy, McNeeley originally committed to play for Indiana in October. He reopened his recruitment in March and many believed he would quickly flip to Kansas. During that time, John Calipari put Kentucky in the mix. Now Mark Pope is trying to pick up where Cal left off. <\/p>\n Kentucky\u2019s top competition is currently UConn. McNeeley has scheduled an official visit to Storrs that is set to begin on Monday<\/a>. If all went well tonight, a trip to Lexington may be in store in the future. <\/p>\n What exactly could McNeeley bring to the BBN? On3\u2019s Jamie Shaw<\/a> has the scouting report: \u201cLiam McNeeley can shoot the basketball. That is probably his feature tool, but he is more than just a shooter. With good positional size, 6-foot-7, he can straight line drive a sloppy close-out, knock down a one, and two-dribble pull-up, and is a smart off-ball cutter. McNeeley is a good team defender; he understands footwork and angles well. He also rotates properly and is not afraid to step in and take a charge.\u201d<\/p>\n Another lengthy, sharp-shooting wing with a McDonald\u2019s All-American Game appearance on his resume has been in contact with Mark Pope. Before he takes an official visit to Cal, Andrej Stojakovic<\/a><\/strong> caught up with Jacob Polacheck of KSR+<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cCoach Pope has shown interest and has offered for me to come on a visit and join their program,\u201d Stojakovic said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019m looking to discuss more with him in the next couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n KSR has been delivering UK Sports news in the most ridiculous manner for almost two decades. Now, you can get even more coverage of the Cats with KSR+. With the transfer portal open for both basketball and football, now is the perfect time to join our online community. Subscribe now for premium articles, in-depth scouting reports, inside intel, bonus recruiting coverage, and access to KSBoard, our message board featuring thousands of Kentucky fans around the globe. Just $1 gets you one month of access<\/strong><\/a>. Come join the club. <\/p>\n The post Mark Pope Pitches Kentucky to 5-Star Talent Liam McNeeley<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As soon as Mark Pope accepted the job to coach his alma mater, he went…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48120,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48096\/revisions\/48120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Kentucky in Contact with Andrej Stojakovic<\/h2>\n
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