Remaining in Lexington is a fan favorite from the previous two Kentucky basketball seasons at Rupp Arena. The only player from the United Kingdom to have participated in all three seasons of the Mark Pope era is Harlan native Trent Noah, who revealed on Sunday afternoon that he will return to the Wildcats for his junior year.
Noah arrived to the UK ranked fifth on the state’s all-time career scoring chart, having excelled at Harlan County High School. After John Calipari left South Carolina two years ago, Pope was hired, and Noah was one of the last players added to his squad for 2024–2025. In an offseason full of change, the 6-foot-5 forward, who has played in 51 games over the previous two seasons, including three starts as a sophomore during the 2025–26 season, will give Pope’s 2026–27 roster some consistency.
Collin Chandler, Mouhamed Dioubate, Brandon Garrison, Andrija Jelavic, Jasper Johnson, and Jaland Lowe, along with senior guard Denzel Aberdeen, who would require an NCAA waiver or rule change to be granted a fifth year of college eligibility, are the seven players from the previous season’s squad who have already registered on the transfer portal. Aberdeen (Florida), Chandler (BYU), and Jelavic (Ohio State) are the three players that have already committed to new schools.
Leading scorer Otega Oweh, a senior, will also leave the UK, and sophomore post player Jayden Quaintance is anticipated to join and stay in this year’s NBA draft.
Both 6-8 wing Kam Williams and 7-footer Malachi Moreno, the team’s main center from the previous season, have pledged to return to Pope. However, Moreno will first go through the NBA selection process. He must remove his name from the draft pool by May 27 in order to maintain his college eligibility for the upcoming campaign. After missing the previous season as redshirts, 7-1 forward Reece Potter and another 6-8 wing, Braydon Hawthorne, are also anticipated to return to Lexington.
Along with Chandler and fellow Kentucky native Travis Perry, Noah arrived in the UK in a three-player freshman class, but both players have since left the program. Perry is back in the portal this offseason after transferring to Ole Miss last year. During Pope’s two seasons as head coach of Kentucky, the only Wildcats recruited as scholarship players were Chandler, Garrison, Noah, and Oweh.
Noah participated in 24 games as a freshman on a team full of veterans, averaging 2.7 points and 1.9 rebounds while shooting 33.3% from three-point range. In a victory over Tennessee at Rupp Arena that season, he scored a season-high 11 points and went 3 for 4 from beyond the arc.
Noah was in Pope’s starting lineup for the season opener as a sophomore, but he sustained an injury in that game that prevented him from playing in the UK’s next two games. Later in the nonconference section of the schedule, he started two more games, victories against Indiana and North Carolina Central, before returning to the bench for the rest of the campaign. Noah averaged 3.0 points and 2.3 rebounds, once again shooting 33.3% from 3-point range this past season. On November 26, he scored a career-high 16 points in a victory over Tennessee Tech.
Later in the season, especially after Williams returned from a broken foot for the Cats’ postseason run, his playing time declined. Noah only appeared in one of Kentucky’s five postseason games after Williams returned to the starting lineup, going 0 for 2 on 3-pointers in three minutes of action during the team’s quarterfinal SEC Tournament defeat to Florida.
Noah did not get off the bench in either of the Cats’ March Madness games in 2026, despite having played at least eight minutes in each of Kentucky’s three NCAA Tournament games the previous year. Throughout the season, Pope kept praising Noah’s hard ethic. After becoming a starter in game one, the Harlan native exhibited no resentment in the locker room after UK’s season-ending defeat to Iowa State.
“I guess that’s kind of the beauty of college basketball,” Noah said. “I mean, we have so many good players on this roster. And the lineups shake around and stuff like that happens. So, yeah, I just feel like that’s another way for me to grow and improve as a player and as a person.”
Noah’s coaches and teammates have praised his ability to make shots from the perimeter despite his career 33.3% 3-point shooting percentage (he was 29 for 87 at Kentucky). Pope bemoaned the fact that he was unable to get as many open looks this past season, partly because of the injury to Lowe, who was expected to be the team’s starting point guard, and the detrimental impact that had on UK’s offense.
