In front of new Kentucky coach Mark Pope, a number of UK recruiting targets helped lead the United States to the gold medal at the FIBA U18 AmeriCup in Buenos Aires, Argentina over the weekend. 

The United States won its seventh consecutive gold medal in the event with a 110-70 win over Argentina on Sunday as top-5 prospect and top-ranked 2025 point guard Darius Acuff finished with 26 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds and 3 steals and was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

Mikel Brown, who along with Acuff was named to the event’s all-tournament team, dished out nine assists in the gold medal game while Jasper Johnson came off the bench to score 19 points, hitting four 3-pointers for the Americans. 

Argentina led 30-28 in the first half before Team USA uncorked an 18-0 run to take a 52-36 lead into halftime. In the third quarter, the United States outscored Argentina 37-14 to put the game out of reach. Team USA finished a perfect 6-0 in the event, winning its games by an average of 41.5 points per game. 

The USA U18 team was led by head coach Tommy Lloyd (Arizona) along with assistants Grant McCasland (Texas Tech) and Micah Shrewsberry (Notre Dame).

The Americans were led by Acuff, who averaged a team-high of 17.8 points to go along with 4.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game. He took an official visit to Kentucky for Big Blue Madness back in October and the Wildcats were thought to be among the leaders for Acuff prior to the coaching change.

Brown, who is relatively new to UK’s recruiting radar, averaged 10.3 points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.3 steals. Trey McKenney, who has also begun to draw recent interest from the new staff, averaged 10.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.3 steals. Shelton Henderson, another new name, averaged 8.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.3 steals.

But Kentucky’s top target is the homegrown UK legacy Johnson. The top-10 prospect, who grew up in Versailles and has visited Kentucky on numerous occasions, averaged 10.0 points and 2.7 assists while shooting 42.3% from beyond the arc. He scored in double figures in three of six games. 

Since officially being named new Kentucky coach on April 12, Pope has been playing catch-up ever since.

First, Pope set out to put together a staff, which includes associate head coach Alvin Brooks III from Baylor, former USC assistant Jason Hart of the G League Ignite, and Cody Fueger, who followed Pope from BYU. From there, Pope focused on the transfer portal to build out a roster that lost all 13 scholarship players from last season to graduation, the transfer portal or the NBA Draft.

Pope’s inaugural 9-man transfer class is currently ranked No. 4 nationally by 247Sports and features No. 23 Brandon Garrison (Oklahoma State), No. 34 Otega Oweh (Oklahoma), No. 36 Jaxson Robinson, No. 48 Lamont Butler (San Diego State), No. 71 Andrew Carr (Wake Forest), No. 88 Amari Williams (Drexel), No. 91 Koby Brea (Dayton), No. 126 Kerr Kriisa (West Virginia), and No. 319 Ansley Almonor (Fairleigh Dickinson).

In addition, Pope has also signed former BYU signee Collin Chandler, who is coming off a 2-year Mormon mission, Kentucky Mr. Basketball, the state’s all-time leading scorer and 4-star guard Travis Perry from state champion Lyon County, as well as Harlan County 4-star and former South Carolina signee Trent Noah to bring the Wildcats’ number of scholarship players to 12. 

Last week, Pope hosted his first elite high school recruit in 5-star reclass candidate Will Riley on an official visit to round out his 2024-25 roster. Currently ranked No. 15 overall in the 2025 class by the 247Sports Composite, Riley is heavily considering making the jump to 2024. 

Last month, the Kentucky staff hit the recruiting trail en masse for the first time, attending events at the Nike EYBL event in Indianapolis, the Adidas 3SSB event in Bryan, Tex., and the new Puma NXTPRO Circuit in Wichita, Kan. to recruit the 2025 class and beyond.