Mark Pope’s first Kentucky recruit hasn’t played basketball in two years. Does it matter?

Whoever ends up playing basketball for the University of Kentucky next season and however the Mark Pope era turns out, one thing is for certain.

History will show that the very first player to fully commit to this new chapter of UK basketball will be Collin Chandler. And he’s coming to Lexington under a unique set of circumstances.

Chandler is in the final stage of a two-year mission trip for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he’s scheduled to arrive home in the United States in less than two weeks.

A top 40 national prospect in the 2022 class, Chandler signed with BYU before his senior season of high school and opted to serve a two-year mission before enrolling in the school. Obviously, a lot has changed around BYU basketball since his departure.

Pope left Provo to become UK’s new coach on April 12, and Chandler — a Farmington, Utah, native — flipped his two-and-a-half-year commitment from the Cougars to the Cats four days later. In doing so, he officially became Kentucky’s first confirmed player for the opening season of the Pope era.

No one questions Chandler’s talent. He was the No. 33 overall recruit in the 2022 class, according to the 247Sports rankings, and would have been a deserving McDonald’s All-American selection that year. But his readiness to jump into the expectations of Kentucky basketball is a bit of a mystery, with two years passed since he last played a competitive game.

Lynn Lloyd is the co-director of the Utah Prospects — the state’s premier grassroots basketball team — and coached Chandler on the Adidas circuit. He’s seen plenty of players go through the process that Chandler is about to navigate, stepping into college sports after two years away.

“Some people say it ruins a kid for basketball. Some say it doesn’t. I mean, it’s just all based on the kid. There’s always individual results,” Lloyd told the Herald-Leader. “All the football guys say it gives them an advantage. But some of the kids come home and don’t have the fire after they’ve gone. They usually grow — very much so — emotionally. The kids come home very mature, because they’ve been on their own for two years, and they’ve basically been serving others. And preaching of Jesus Christ and the invitation to do that.

“So the kids come home very mature. But Collin was always very mature. So I don’t see that part of him changing. He’s always been really mature, black and white, knows right from wrong, raised by a great family.”

Preparing for Kentucky basketball

Lloyd pointed to another one of his former players — point guard Sam Merrill — as an example of what’s possible following a two-year mission trip before college. Merrill served his mission in Nicaragua before enrolling at Utah State, where he averaged 9.4 points in 26.7 minutes before starting every game over his last three seasons — scoring more than 1,900 points in that stretch — and leading the Aggies to NCAA Tournament berths in each of his last two years.

Merrill is now in his fourth season in the NBA. One difference: He was a three-star recruit in high school. Chandler was in the mix for five-star status.

While the transition won’t be easy, Lloyd expects Chandler to get through it just fine.

His mission began in the West African country of Sierra Leone and will wrap up in London, England, early next month. Lloyd said Chandler is due to arrive back in Utah on May 2. Two days later, his family has a trip planned to Hawaii, where he’ll stay for about a week.

“I would expect him to be in Kentucky right after that,” Lloyd said, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if Chandler calls to try and arrange some gym time so he can get up shots while on the family trip to Hawaii.

Chandler has sent Lloyd weekly emails while he’s been overseas, and his former coach said the future Wildcat has played very little basketball over the past two years. Mormon missionaries in Chandler’s position have a “prep day” once a week that can be used for tasks like laundry and running errands. “Sometimes there was a little basketball in there,” Lloyd said.

But not much, and certainly nothing on the level of the competitive games he was used to playing back home. Chandler obviously won’t be the first college basketball player to traverse this path, however, and Lloyd pointed out that Pope and BYU are used to working with players in these situations

“Just knowing him and his body type, he’ll be fine,” Lloyd said of Chandler. “And it was part of the program at BYU — because they deal with a lot of return missionaries — Mark will have a routine for him to get back in shape.”

In the past, Lloyd said Pope would have such players pass endurance and strength tests to make sure they were in shape before they were allowed to fully work out with the team. “It won’t take Collin long to get in shape. He’s long and wiry, and he’s not carrying any weight or anything like that.”

Chandler was listed at 6-foot-4 and 170 pounds as a recruit — he was probably bulkier than that by the end of his senior year — but Lloyd said the player’s father confirmed that he’s grown a little on his two-year-trip, putting him closer to 6-5. As soon as he gets back in the States — and especially when he arrives in Lexington in a few weeks — the work will begin to get back into game form.

“So he’ll probably have a 60-day struggle to get in shape and get his legs under him,” Lloyd said. “But I think, by July, he’ll be Collin.”

What Chandler brings to Kentucky

Lloyd said Chandler wanted to play for the Utah Prospects as a 15-year-old, but the club didn’t take him. He was coming off an injury — still not 100% healthy — and Lloyd told his father, Jason, that there was no need to rush anything at that age. At 16, he was ready to play for the team.

“And his growth from 16 to 17 was just enormous,” Lloyd said. “He went from a pretty good player to the best player in the state. And really it’s his work ethic. The kid is a tireless worker. He’s a gym rat.”

The Prospects’ long line of talent means club officials are well familiar with BYU’s program, and vice versa. Lloyd said Pope is known for his hard practices — no doubt a result of Pope’s own grueling sessions under Rick Pitino while playing at Kentucky — and he expects Chandler to thrive in that environment once he gets to Lexington.

“Nobody will outwork Collin Chandler. And you should print that,” he said. “Nobody will outwork Collin. There’s no shortcuts with him, and he’s going to do it with a smile on his face. Because he is all about getting better. And he doesn’t care if he scores four points and gets one assist, as long as the team wins. He’s all about winning. He’s not about himself. Ever.

“Which, as a coach, makes it really easy. When you’re hardest on your best players, and they can take it — that’s when great things happen.”

Chandler averaged 21.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.7 steals per game as a high school senior. He also turned heads in the recruiting community.

“Very talented guard,” 247Sports national analyst Travis Branham told the Herald-Leader. “He’s a guard with size, and he had really started to come into his own physically toward the end of his high school career. … He’s a very good athlete. Tough, competitive kid. He brought it every single time, in every single setting you saw him in. He scores it from all three levels. He can create his own shot. He’s very instinctive, on both ends of the court. He jumps the passing lanes. He gets out in transition. Just does a lot of things well at that 2-3 position.”

Others in recruiting circles have told the Herald-Leader that Chandler had “NBA-level upside” out of high school, before embarking on his two-year mission. Branham agreed with that assessment.

“Yeah, I would say so, for sure. He’s just that talented,” he said. “And he showed that throughout his high school career. With his size, his toughness, his athleticism — and the scoring ability he showed, the upside he showed as a shooter — yeah. Two years ago, it definitely was not crazy by any means to say, ‘Two years from now, this kid could be a potential pro.’”

Like everyone else, Branham is interested to see how quickly Chandler can get back into game shape and what so much time away from the game might have done to his skill set.

“I would anticipate it taking some time with him, just because — when you haven’t played a competitive basketball game in two years — it’s going to take you time to find your rhythm and find your legs,” he said. “Because game speed is so much more different than workouts here and there — what he was able to do on his mission.”

His role at Kentucky will obviously depend, in part, on who else is on the roster.

While Chandler is the first confirmed Wildcat for the 2024-25 season, in-state star Travis Perry — a signee at UK before John Calipari left for Arkansas — attended Pope’s introductory ceremony in Rupp Arena last weekend. It would be a major surprise if he backs out of his commitment, and an official confirmation that he’s coming to Lexington is expected soon.

Past that, the roster entered the weekend as a mystery. Fans holding out hope that Reed Sheppard might return received bad news Thursday afternoon, when he announced he would enter the NBA draft and forgo his remaining three years of eligibility.

Pope has 6-10 post player Amari Williams coming for an official visit that begins Sunday, and other highly touted transfers are expected to join Kentucky’s program in the coming weeks.

However UK’s 2024-25 roster shakes out, Chandler should be among the top backcourt contributors, even if he doesn’t start right away. And his long-term potential — as well as his fit within Pope’s electric offense — should make for a solid building block to the foundation of this new era of Kentucky basketball.

“Collin can really shoot it,” Lloyd said. “He’s a really good slasher. He’s not just a 3 and dunk guy. He’s got a really good midrange game. He’s always had one. I expect him to play. How much he plays, I don’t know. As competitive as he is — and it’s a game of skill at this point. It’s not just athletes. You’ve got to be able to shoot it. And I know that’s really important to Mark. He can really shoot it.

“So I don’t know what his role will be. But he’ll contribute to the team. I’m pretty comfortable with that.”

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