That’s a start, but those players would fill fewer than a third of UK’s available scholarships, with all 10 underclassmen from Calipari’s final Kentucky team now either in the NBA draft pool or the transfer portal.

The process of finding players will continue with Pope and his assistant coaches — for now, it’s only Cody Fueger and Jason Hart — working the phones and getting to know potential Wildcats on a more personal level. UK hosted Saunders for his official visit Monday, and more official visitors will be coming to Lexington as this week continues.

If a player makes it to town, it’s a pretty good bet he’s a coveted target, with Pope doing his due diligence ahead of time to identify who best fits the direction he wants to take this program.

The 51-year-old coach described himself as “a FaceTime guy” when initially connecting with recruits. He wants to be able to see their faces and get a better sense of their reactions and emotions when discussing the possibility of playing for Kentucky, much preferring that visual medium to traditional phone calls. “When I just have to talk over a regular phone call, I feel like I’m not even communicating,” he said. “I feel like we don’t even know each other.”

What exactly is he looking for during these conversations, before bringing a player to campus?

“It’s all the things,” Pope says, acknowledging that’s a broad answer but asking to bear with him as he works his way toward the specifics. “I think sometimes we try to reduce the recipe down to one or two things. And there’s not very many things you can make with only one or two ingredients. You can make ice with water. But we’re trying to make a much more complicated stew than that.

“So it really is a balance of all the things that we’re looking for, and that’s why you get into second and third and fourth and fifth FaceTimes and Zooms and face-to-face encounters.”

Obviously, Pope is looking for guys that fit the culture he wants to foster at Kentucky, the “name on the front of the jersey” ideals that he spoke of in that first press conference at Rupp Arena and will continue to talk about throughout his tenure. A willingness to sacrifice for the team and acknowledge that no one player is bigger than the whole is of great importance when vetting possible additions to UK’s program.

Pope spoke of building this first roster, specifically, as like “trying to fit together a puzzle” — a process with needs and wants that will change as more and more players sign on, altering the dynamic of what he and his staff are looking for in future targets.

“Making a team is just a brilliant process,” he said. “And when I say ‘brilliant’ what I mean is it’s just exciting. It’s incredibly artistic. So when you ask kind of what factors we’re looking for — we’re looking for all of them. Clearly, we’re looking for length and size and speed. We’re looking for talent. We’re looking for skill level. Skill level, in terms of — shooting is always going to be at a premium for us here, the way we play — it’s always going to be really important.

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