LEXINGTON — When Kentucky basketball opens the season Nov. 4 against Wright State, it won't only be the first game under new UK coach Mark Pope. The 2024-25 Wildcats will be something unforeseen for the winningest program in the history of college basketball. That's because, according to bigbluehistory.net — a statistical database devoted to detailing every aspect of Kentucky's men's basketball program — it will mark the first time a UK squad takes the court without returning a scholarship player from the previous season.

Five members of last season's team (Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, Tre Mitchell, Antonio Reeves and Reed Sheppard) departed to begin their professional careers. The other seven scholarship Wildcats — Aaron Bradshaw, Jordan Burks, Joey Hart, Zvonimir Ivišić, Ugonna Onyenso, Adou Thiero and D.J. Wagner — entered the transfer portal.

But Pope and his staff wasted no time rebuilding the roster, leaning heavily into the transfer market.

Nine transfers joined the program this offseason: guards Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa, Otega Oweh and Jaxson Robinson, forwards Ansley Almonor, Andrew Carr and Amari Williams and center Brandon Garrison.

Evan Miyakawa, a basketball statistician who runs the analytics website EvanMiya.com, said the Wildcats worked wonders in the transfer portal.

"Considering they lost their entire roster and had to start from scratch, it's really impressive," Miyakawa told The Courier Journal. "I think they've gotten guys who fit Mark Pope's coaching style. I think they've got a mix of good offensive and defensive players. So while I honestly don't think there's a star player on this team, the depth on this team is really good. I think the rotation is going to be one of the strongest in the SEC.

"From an analytics perspective, there's a lot to love here."

Andrew Carr 'should be really impactful'

The traditional recruiting services — the "big four" of Rivals, 247Sports, ESPN and On3 — don't have Carr, a sweet-shooting 6-foot-11 forward who spent the past two seasons at Wake Forest, as a marquee pickup for Kentucky.

Rivals had the highest opinion of him, ranking him as the No. 65 overall player in the portal. 247Sports placed him No. 67. ESPN's Jeff Borzello slotted him 84th. On3 had him at No. 87.

Miyakawa, however, regards Carr as UK's best transfer, where he comes in at No. 36. Miyakawa's rankings are based off a player's projected Bayesian Performance Rating for the 2024-25 campaign. The Bayesian Performance Rating — BPR for short — is defined on Miyakawa's website.

"This rating is the ultimate measure of a player’s overall value to his team when he is on the floor," Miyakawa wrote. "BPR is interpreted as the number of points per 100 possessions better than the opponent the player’s team is expected to be if the player were on the court with 9 other average players. A higher rating is better."

Carr's projected BPR next season is a team-best 4.98.

"I just don't think there's a lot of weaknesses to Andrew Carr's game in terms of what he brings to the table," Miyakawa said. "He's a really lengthy, tall player. Basically almost 7 feet tall, and he can shoot it from deep. He can stretch the floor playing at the 4 or the 5. He averaged over 13 points per game (last season).

"But I think there are a lot of other things to his game as well that show how balanced he is. He averaged 1 ½ blocks per game. He was super efficient near the basket — he shot over 60% from inside the arc, but he also made almost 40% from deep, too. So he's really very versatile offensively. I think there are gonna be a lot of nights where he's your main scorer."

Miyakawa reasoned that the chasm that exists between his ranking for Carr and that of the four national recruiting databases is the quartet failing to account for how much he influences a game in ways that aren't always conspicuous.

"When you look at Wake Forest last year, and you look at the difference between their team performance when Andrew Carr was in the game versus when he was on the bench, their team outscored opponents by 10.7 points per 100 possessions, which would be equivalent to 7.5 points in a 70-possession game, which represents a typical game's tempo," Miyakawa said.

"So, basically, there was a night-and-day difference between their team performance when he was on the floor versus not. So when you combine that with the individual stats — also pointing to how balanced and efficient his game is — all of these things point to a guy who, on paper, should be really, really impactful."

Kerr Kriisa projected to be UK's top offensive playmaker

Carr isn't the only new Wildcat whom Miyakawa viewed as an addition underrated by other outlets. While declining to call him a hidden gem, Miyakawa noted Kriisa, who spent last season at West Virginia, should be Kentucky's best all-around weapon offensively next season.

"He is a volume 3-point shooter, but he makes over 40% of them, which is amazing," Miyakawa said. "He pretty much only shoots 3s for the most part, and he makes a heck of a lot of them. And he averaged close to five assists per game (last season) on a team where the teammates around him were not very good."

Prior to his lone campaign at West Virginia, Kriisa suited up for Arizona for three seasons, pacing the Pac-12 in assists per game in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

"I think Kriisa is a much better player than what a lot of people give him credit for. Basically, he's criticized for being a little erratic at times," Miyakawa said. "And the defensive (criticism), I think, is true. His defensive grade, amongst other transfers on this team, is not very good. But from an offensive perspective, I think as a point guard, he has done a really good job, both at Arizona and at West Virginia — even on a team that was pretty bad last year — at being able to really stretch the floor and hit a lot of 3-pointers and also really provide a lot of playmaking for teammates. "

Miyakawa pointed to last season for proof: Despite the drop in talent around him going from Arizona to West Virginia, Kriisa's numbers improved in nearly every statistical category.

His projected offensive BPR — a component of BPR that measures a player's offensive value when he's on the floor — for the 2024-25 campaign is 3.91, the best among UK players and ahead of Carr's 3.57. Kriisa's projected offensive BPR ranks 18th nationally among players who entered the transfer portal after last season concluded.

"From a public perception perspective, I think he's going to have a 'rebound year,'" Miyakawa said. "But I think he's been a good player this whole time. It's just that the things people focus on aren't really his best attributes."

Miyakawa: Keep expectations in check for Ansley Almonor, Koby Brea

Almonor knocked down 93 3-pointers at Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023-24, tying the program's single-season mark. Brea was Division I's most accurate 3-point marksman last season, making 49.8% (100 for 201) of his attempts starring for Dayton.

Despite their prowess from the perimeter, however, Miyakawa cautioned both come with limitations.

"Almonor put up good numbers for Fairleigh Dickinson. But Fairleigh Dickinson doesn't play in a great league," Miyakawa said. "So those sorts of statistics don't typically translate that well, and my projections take that into account: just the massive talent jump that he's gonna be taking in terms of teams that he's playing against."

Brea brings shooting … and that's about it.

"He's an elite shooter. There's no getting around that. That's why he's on his team," Miyakawa said. "Because of that, he's going to have some games where he's really, really important. But outside of his 3-point shooting, his statistical profile? He doesn't really do much else. He doesn't really rebound the ball much. He doesn't really provide for teammates much. He was a middling defender, at best, for Dayton last year. So his value is 3-point shooting. That's what it is. But there's not a lot outside of that, and because of that, that's why I don't have him ranked as highly as some of UK's other transfers."

'Not really a weak spot on this team'

All in all, Miyakawa considers UK's nine-man transfer class the sixth best in the country, trailing top-ranked St. John's, Louisville (No. 2), Kansas State (No. 3), Vanderbilt (No. 4) and Michigan (No. 5).

Here's what Miyakawa had to say about some of the Wildcats' other transfers:

On Robinson, who played for Pope at BYU and led the Cougars in scoring last season: "I think he was a great get for them, especially late. I think there were a lot of great qualities across the roster prior to him joining. But one of the things that was lacking a little bit was just pure scoring talent, especially from the guard position. … Coming from Mark Pope's previous team, he knows exactly what to expect, and he's also willing to kind of play that sort of spark plug role, whether that's starting or coming off the bench. He came off the bench most games for BYU."

On Garrison, who averaged 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in 22.7 minutes per game and blocked 66 shots at Oklahoma State last season: "I really like Garrison. There's a lot of potential with him. He's one of the youngest players on this team. He was a good recruit out of high school, and that's one of the things that my projections take into account is not just, 'How did you play in the previous season?' but also, 'What kind of potential do you still have that you haven't reached based on how people evaluated you out of high school?' And so he's definitely one of those players that falls in that camp where he was pretty solid as a freshman, he showed some really good defensive ability and he's still got a lot more left in terms of unreached potential based on what people thought of him coming out of high school."

While Miyakawa believes UK lacks a superstar (in the sense of boasting a no-doubt All-American candidate), Pope has covered all other bases.

"Pretty much every single guy that they've gotten — at least their top eight players, according to my transfer rankings — are all some of the very best transfers in the country," Miyakawa said. "There's not really a weak spot on this team."

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball roster 2024-25: Mark Pope's UK team includes depth