UK basketball recruited internationally under John Calipari. Mark Pope is doing the same.

Under John Calipari, Kentucky basketball held international influence on the recruiting trail.

In total, 20 players born outside the United States have played in a game for the Wildcats. Of those, 14 played for UK during the 15 seasons when Calipari was the head coach.

Calipari had players from the likes of Canada, New Zealand and Sudan all suit up for Kentucky during his time on the bench.

The overall number will grow to 22 players once the 2024-25 season gets underway: incoming transfer portal additions Kerr Kriisa, a guard from Estonia, and Amari Williams, a forward from England, were both born outside the U.S.

While new UK coach Mark Pope isn’t expected to bring the exact same kind of recruiting prowess as Calipari to the table, Pope has quickly alleviated concerns that he wouldn’t be going all-in on the recruiting trail. Part of this has come from the wide net Pope has already cast as he begins to recruit class of 2025 and 2026 players to Kentucky.

Included in this group is a highly touted international prospect.

Last Monday night, class of 2025 five-star small forward Dwayne Aristode reported a scholarship offer from the Wildcats. The interlocking UK logo made an appearance among several other schools in Aristode’s graphic of reported scholarship offers: Kentucky is among 15 schools and joined by the likes of Alabama, Duke, Kansas and UConn.

Born in The Netherlands, Aristode has multiple years of past playing experience in Spain with Club Joventut Badalona, a Catalonia-based basketball club, as well as on the international stage with the Dutch national team.

Aristode rose to prominence during the 2022 FIBA Under-16 European Championship, where he averaged 15.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.1 assists while also shooting 37.5% from 3-point range in seven games for The Netherlands.

Now, Aristode plays at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire (part of the Nike EYBL scholastic league) and for Massachusetts-based Expressions Elite on the Nike EYBL circuit.

The 6-foot-8, 210-pound Aristode was one of a handful of scholarship offers Kentucky gave out during the course of last week’s NBPA Top 100 Camp, an elite gathering of future college basketball prospects held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Florida.

“I’m obviously a two-way player. I think I fit in well shooting the ball, playing defense as well,” Aristode said last week at the camp, noting how his length and size allows him to function as an effective rebounder and rim protector.

Aristode added that he believes his three years of playing experience in Spain allows him to understand basketball in a different way, which provides an advantage when playing against his peers.

“Just learning how to be a pro. I’ve been around pros, like real pros, and I’ve seen how they prep for games, for practices, how they approach a game, how they treat their teammates, how they treat their coaches,” Aristode said. “Seeing that has helped me get a lot of advantages for sure.”

Over the course of nine games at the NBPA Top 100 Camp — which was held in front of personnel from all 30 NBA franchises, as well as college coaches and recruiters — Aristode had five double-digit scoring games and four in which he grabbed at least six rebounds.

This included a nine-point, seven-rebound effort when playing against four-star class of 2025 center Chris Cenac Jr., another recruit at the event who picked up a Kentucky scholarship offer.

All four Kentucky basketball coaches permitted to go out recruiting — Pope along with associate head coach Alvin Brooks III and assistant coaches Cody Fueger and Jason Hart — made the trip to Florida to take in the NBPA Top 100 Camp and evaluate prospects.

While those four UK coaches accounted for just a small portion of the dozens of high-major coaches at the event, it signaled the value Kentucky placed in scouting the prospects who were participating.

Aristode (who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 17 overall player in the 2025 recruiting group) also believes his international basketball experience will help him at the college level, should he choose that route.

“(College coaches) want you to be independent. They want you to be independent, so it will definitely help,” Aristode said.

Last week was just the latest opportunity for Kentucky’s coaches to watch Aristode play.

In May, UK watched Aristode play for Expressions Elite during the Nike EYBL event in Indiana, which was open for college coaches and recruiters to attend.

Aristode averaged 12.5 points per game for Expressions Elite during EYBL regular-season play.

“We just started talking,” Aristode said of his relationship with Pope and Kentucky. “… They like my size. They like how I move with my size, getting into the paint and using my speed … And (how) I share the ball and play defense. And I’m able to shoot. So that’s what they like about me. I’m a versatile player, so they like versatile players.”

UK also recruited Aristode, but didn’t extend a scholarship offer to him, when Calipari was the head coach.

Aristode has already taken official recruiting visits to Arizona and Wake Forest, and it was recently reported that Duke, UCLA and UConn are on his shortlist of schools to visit this summer.

Mark Pope, Kentucky begin to contact class of 2026 prospects

Pope has only been on the job as the Kentucky basketball coach for two months, but he and his coaching staff have already hit a number of high school recruiting events, in addition to assembling a new-look UK roster that currently features 14 players (12 scholarship players and two walk-ons).

Along with last week’s NBPA Top 100 Camp, Kentucky has also had a recruiting presence this spring at the Nike EYBL circuit in Indiana, the Adidas 3SSB circuit in Texas, the Puma PRO16/NXT circuit in Kansas, the USA Basketball Men’s Under-18 National Team training camp in Colorado and the FIBA Men’s Under-18 AmeriCup in Argentina.

Another major recruiting marker came and went over the weekend.

Starting on Saturday, college basketball coaches have been allowed to directly contact class of 2026 recruits.

As Pope and his coaching staff continue to determine which rising juniors Kentucky will seriously pursue over the next two years, we already know a few players that Pope is in the early stages of building a relationship with.

According to On3’s Joe Tipton, Kentucky contacted a trio of five-star class of 2026 small forwards — Alex Constanza, Caleb Holt and Jalen Montonati — after the direct contact period began.

So far, only five-star power forward Tyran Stokes (who was born in Louisville) has reported a UK scholarship offer among class of 2026 prospects. Stokes, who is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 2 overall player in his class, received his scholarship offer from the Wildcats when Calipari was UK’s coach.

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