UK NOTEBOOK: Pope says he has final say on recruits

Kentucky coach Mark Pope has the final say when it comes to recruiting.

The Kentucky coach can also gauge whether a player is the right fit and has been known to cut a recruiting visit short as a benefit to both parties.

“In the high-paced recruiting of portal recruiting a lot of times, the first time you ever meet a player in person is on their campus visit,” Pope said. “We've had a lot of great visits. We've had some visits that we cut short. Our record for cutting a visit short was three hours, where we just determined that this was not going to be a great fit.”

Pope, who doesn’t have a sole general manager, takes a team approach rather than relying on one individual to deal with players, agents and coaches.

“Every single one of my assistant coaches talks to agents every single day,” Pope said. “It's an integral part of the recruiting process. You talk to a AAU coach, talk to a high school coach, you talk to family members, you talk to the player, and you talk to their agent.”

CHASING MOMCILOVIC

Iowa State’s Milan Momcilovic is "focused on the draft” as he mulls his future this week.

Momcilovic is participating in the NBA Combine in Chicago this week, and Kentucky figures to be one of the teams that will be chasing him if he opts to pull out of the draft.

“I haven’t even talked to any colleges yet, but I’m sure if I have to go back, there is a spot open for me somewhere,” he told Isaac Trotter of CBS Sports. “I’m still going through this process — the deadline is the 27th of May, so I have a couple of weeks. I’m going to obviously finish this week, and then I’ve got some workouts with teams lined up over the next couple of weeks.”

St. John’s and Louisville could also be chasing Momcilovic.

“If I return to college, just a fit that I can play well in and hopefully help my chances to go to the NBA the year after that,” he said. “Hopefully I’m on a good team that can go far in the tournament.”