Ben Baby
Multiple Authors
ST. LOUIS — Kentucky males’s basketball coach Mark Pope had a variety of issues to say about Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg‘s feedback that he obtained a multimillion-dollar supply to play for the Wildcats.
One factor Pope did not explicitly say: Lendeborg was flawed.
Pope closely prompt that Lendeborg’s declare to The Associated Press that Kentucky supplied him $7 million to $9 million to switch from UAB in 2025 was inaccurate. However, Pope didn’t explicitly deny or affirm Lendeborg’s reported supply.
“I am trying not to make a commentary on it,” Pope mentioned Thursday forward of 7-seed Kentucky’s first-round sport towards 10-seed Santa Clara within the NCAA event. “This is all part of the distraction that my team is not a part of.
“We will try to embrace the circus nature of this and rely on some accountable media member someplace to truly form of dig in and discover out or simply be accountable reporting.”
Lendeborg’s comments to the AP were published Monday. Pope said that a couple of days ago, outgoing Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart walked into his office and had a conversation about things that were being reported before Pope on Thursday decried the accuracy standards of modern media, calling this “an fascinating time on this planet.”
Lendeborg told the AP that Kentucky had “began the quantity with $7 [million] to $9 [million].”
“They had been just about going off on the route like we’ll pay him something to get right here,” he said, noting that the Wildcats’ offer was about three times higher than what he took from the Wolverines.
Lendeborg helped the Wolverines (31-3) win the Big Ten regular-season title and receive a 1-seed in the NCAA tournament. Kentucky (21-13) sputtered toward the end of the regular season, going 2-5 in its last seven SEC games and reaching the conference tournament quarterfinals before losing to Florida.
In his second season at Kentucky, Pope is seeking to lead the Wildcats to back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances for the first time since 2018-19.
Earlier this season, ESPN’s Dick Vitale mentioned on a broadcast that Kentucky’s roster cost roughly $22 million to assemble. The Wildcats, like some of the other top brands in the sport, have sought to maximize current NIL regulations to produce a winning program.
Whereas Pope talked around the alleged Lendeborg offer, he was direct in speaking about how NIL has impacted the expectations of leading one of college basketball’s most storied programs.
“In phrases of the NIL scenario, it may add some stress to it,” Pope said. “I feel it undoubtedly provides distraction.”
But even if Pope desperately wanted to avoid making headlines ahead of Friday’s game against Santa Clara, he embraced the conversation about what Kentucky can accomplish.
“The stress is ever current, and we would like it,” Pope said. “That’s why we come to Kentucky — for it to matter. We love that half.”
