Mark Pope talks about the NCAA champ from Florida who is transferring to Kentucky

Mark Pope talks about the NCAA champ from Florida who is transferring to

On Tuesday afternoon, head coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats officially announced the addition of former Florida guard Denzel Aberdeen to UK’s roster for the 2025-26 season. “Denzel is a winner, in every sense of the word,” Pope said in a UK news release. “He has won at every level of basketball and that’s all that he talks about. Zel is a great young man who works for everything he earns. He’s a three-level scorer and a rangy defender who has tremendous length.” A 6-foot-5 guard from Orlando, Aberdeen spent the past three seasons at Florida and played a key role for the Gators as they won the 2025 NCAA title.

Last season, Aberdeen averaged 7.7 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 19.7 minutes per game for Florida, while making five starts and 39 total appearances for Todd Golden’s team.

Aberdeen went 36-for-103 on 3-pointers (35.0%) and 70.8% on free throws during the 2024-25 season. It’s worth noting that Aberdeen averaged 14.4 points and shot 41.4% from 3-point range in his five starts for the Gators last season.

He committed to Kentucky out of the transfer portal on April 21. Originally a three-star recruit in the 2022 high school recruiting class, Aberdeen committed to play at Florida when Mike White was still the Gators’ head coach. White is now the head coach at Georgia. But, Aberdeen was the only recruit who stuck with his pledge to Florida following the coaching change from White to Golden.

A projected starter for the Gators next season, Aberdeen scored seven points in 18 minutes in Florida’s national championship game victory over Houston. Aberdeen played at least 14 minutes in all of Florida’s six NCAA Tournament wins last season, most notably scoring 12 points in Florida’s win against Maryland in the Sweet 16. Overall, Aberdeen was sixth in scoring, sixth in minutes played and fourth in made 3-pointers for the Gators last season. Aberdeen is the fifth transfer portal pickup for Pope’s program this offseason. He joins sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama), sophomore guard Jaland Lowe (Pittsburgh), freshman big man Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State) and freshman wing Kam Williams (Tulane) as players who have opted to transfer to Kentucky via the portal for the 2025-26 season. Denzel Aberdeen, a 6-foot-5 guard from Orlando, played three seasons at Florida before opting to enter the transfer portal this offseason. Aberdeen will play for Kentucky next season.

What does the 2025-26 Kentucky basketball roster look like?

Currently, Kentucky has 12 scholarship players in place for next season’s team. Kentucky is working with the assumption that there will be 15 scholarships available for the 2025-26 season, an increase that’s expected to result from the House vs. NCAA settlement that could be finalized soon. This means UK would still have three scholarships to use to fill out next season’s team. Next season’s projected roster includes four expected returnees from last season’s team: Freshmen guard Collin Chandler, freshman forward Trent Noah, sophomore center Brandon Garrison and junior guard Otega Oweh.

Oweh has declared for the 2025 NBA draft while keeping open his option to return to Kentucky for his senior college season. Freshman guard Travis Perry entered the transfer portal Tuesday night, just hours before the deadline to enter the portal. UK has the five aforementioned transfer portal arrivals for next season: Aberdeen, Dioubate, Lowe, Quaintance and Williams. The Wildcats will also be bringing in at least three first-year college basketball players next season. Two of these players — guard Jasper Johnson and in-state center Malachi Moreno — will arrive via the traditional high school recruiting pathway.

The other is Andrija Jelavic, a soon-to-be 21-year-old big man from Croatia. Jelavic has played the last two seasons for Mega MIS, also known as Kosarkaski klub Mega Basket and Mega Superbet, a professional team based in Serbia. Pope and the Wildcats are also still involved in the recruitment of high school senior Braydon Hawthorne, a four-star small forward who was previously signed to play at West Virginia. Hawthorne has already taken a recruiting visit to Kentucky.