Before Kentucky tipped off against Indiana on Saturday night, Mitch Barnhart addressed the growing conversation surrounding NIL at UK Athletics, with much of the focus centered on basketball and the program’s lack of commitment in the 2026 recruiting class.
Barnhart emphasized that Kentucky’s NIL model is built around long-standing partnerships that help fund everything from travel to daily operational costs, noting that those relationships matter when opportunities are presented to student-athletes.
“We’ve got some incredibly strong Kentucky partners in our network,” Barnhart said. “We do ask that we look at that and say, hey, is there a space for them to be able to work with our partners first?”
At the same time, Barnhart pushed back on the idea that athletes are restricted. He made it clear that while UK encourages players to work with in-house partners, they are free to pursue outside opportunities if those relationships don’t fit.
“There is no one-size-fits-all,” Barnhart said. “If that doesn’t work and they want to go do some other things, they absolutely have the opportunity to do that.”
Barnhart also addressed criticism tied to JMI and Kentucky’s NIL structure, saying it provides no incentive to limit competitiveness.
“Why in the world would we do anything other than give ourselves the best chance to win?” he said, adding that many programs nationwide operate in similar ways.
Late in the interview, Barnhart acknowledged the outside noise surrounding UK basketball and admitted results matter.
“We’ve got some teams doing that incredibly well,” he said. “We’ve got a couple that are struggling, and we’ve got to get them going.”
Let’s hope they can get things going and see an uptick in basketball recruiting.
