{"id":669301,"date":"2026-05-28T03:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669301\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T03:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T03:10:09","slug":"milan-momcilovic-withdraws-from-nba-draft-will-return-to-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/669301\/","title":{"rendered":"Milan Momcilovic withdraws from NBA Draft, will return to college"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best shooter in college basketball will, in fact, stay in college basketball \u2014 and Kentucky<\/a> is ready to make its final push.<\/p>\n

Iowa State star Milan Momcilovic<\/a> has withdrawn from the 2026 NBA Draft and will play somewhere at his current level in 2026-27. That\u2019s not expected to be back in Ames, as Cyclone coach T.J. Otzelberger<\/a> made clear, saying that if the 6-8 forward doesn\u2019t make the jump to the pros, \u201cit\u2019s important that he\u2019s able to find a landing spot at a college that fits what he\u2019s looking for.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Could Lexington be that final destination? The perimeter sniper already said he\u2019s got respect for the Wildcats and Mark Pope, watching his programs closely since his time at BYU when they competed against each other in the Big 12.<\/p>\n

In his eyes, he could be the piece Kentucky was missing this past season in the program\u2019s Round of 32 exit, led by Momcilovic\u2019s 20 points and five rebounds in the Cyclones\u2019 82-63 victory in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Kentucky would be a good fit,\u201d Momcilovic\u00a0told the Herald-Leader\u2019s Ben Roberts last week at the NBA Draft Combine<\/a>. \u201cI obviously went against Pope at BYU his first year (in the Big 12), and I loved how his team played. I think we went 1-1 against them, but they killed us at their place, because they fly the ball up the court and shoot 3s. I really like the way they play. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd obviously, Kentucky last year, he didn\u2019t have enough shooters around him to really coach, I feel like, the way he wanted. But I think \u2014 if I were to choose Kentucky \u2014 that would be a good fit for me. I feel like I\u2019d be a great player for him, and he\u2019d be a good coach for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Momcilovic averaged a career-high 16.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 30.5 minutes per game while shooting 50.6 percent from the field, 48.7 percent from three and 87.8 percent at the line. He knocked down 260 3-pointers, good for 3.7 makes on 7.5 attempts per contest.<\/p>\n

The former four-star recruit has been Kentucky\u2019s dream portal target all offseason. Now, he\u2019s officially a free agent, pulling out of the draft ahead of the withdrawal deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best shooter in college basketball will, in fact, stay in college basketball \u2014 and Kentucky is ready…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49593,241596,99],"class_list":["post-669301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-kentucky-basketball","tag-milan-momcilovic-23-pewaukee","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}