BYU transfer Aly Khalifa is scheduled to visit Louisville.
Khalifa will make a valuable contribution to any program.
The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball program has had a turbulent last month following the season-ending defeat to Oakland.
The Wildcats’ head coach, John Calipari, was replaced this week by Mark Pope.
While it seemed like a much-needed shift in power, a strong tournament performance may have kept Calipari in Lexington for at least another season. It was definitely time to move on after a few poor runs, but the Pope era will be quite different.
Pope, a former player at Kentucky, was BYU’s head coach.
The Cougars, like many other teams, will likely have a large number of players on the transfer market. Several may follow Pope to Lexington, but Cougars center Aly Khalifa is expected to visit Kentucky’s rival, Louisville, in the near future.
The 6-foot-10 center transferred from Charlotte to BYU, spending two seasons with the former and one with the latter. At Charlotte, he averaged 7.6 points as a freshman and 11.7 as a sophomore.
Khalida played 19.4 minutes per game for the Cougars under Pope, averaging 5.7 points and 3.7 rebounds while also recording a career-high 4.0 assists per game.
The Cats plan to add many players from Pope’s group, as well as bring in recruits and maintain guys from Calipari’s final roster. Kentucky will face a lengthy road to assembling their 2024-25 roster.
