The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball program has undergone significant change over the last few months. After long-time head coach John Calipari decided he’d leave for Arkansas, the Cats lost a slew of recruits and then a handful of players to the transfer portal.

It was up to the recently hired Mark Pope, who joined from BYU, to get the job done, and he’s starting to round out his roster. A big part of that was keeping 4-star recruit Travis Perry, who originally signed while Calipari was still in town after leading Lyon County to a Kentucky Sweet 16 Championship.

Harlan County’s Trent Noah was set to go elsewhere before reopening his recruiting and eventually picking Pope’s Wildcats. Now, Noah is hoping to team up with Perry and bring another championship to the Bluegrass state.

“We played together some this summer, and we got to compete against each other in the state finals, but the good thing is — we were talking — it’s just now that we’re on the side same, we’re working toward that same goal. We’re trying to hang number nine together. To finally be on the same team, it really is special. That’s one of the first people that I texted after, and I’m just super excited to get to work with him,” Noah said in an interview with KSR.

The Cats have a roster that is going to feature several key transfer players.

Andrew Carr, Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, and others should be able to captain this team, but the help of freshmen like Noah and Perry could be huge – especially after seeing what 4-star recruit Reed Sheppard was able to do a season ago.

Noah has lofty expectations, but no one should have it any other way.