Aaron Harrison told Jaland and Marland Lowe that Kentucky fans loved basketball. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Marland Lowe has had a huge influence on numerous basketball players, especially in the Houston area, as Southwest Director of Grassroots Basketball and is well known as being a major powerbroker on the AAU circuit.
His son, Jaland Lowe, recently transferred to Kentucky from Pittsburgh and is expected to be coach Mark Pope’s point guard the next two seasons.
Marland Lowe had a lot of ties to the Kentucky basketball program. Former UK player Reggie Hanson got to know Lowe when he was recruiting Jai Lucas to play for Kentucky when he was on Tubby Smith’s coaching staff. The two even texted the day Jaland Lowe committed to UK.
Marland Lowe said Hanson is “awesome” and called him a “fantastic person.”
Former UK All-American Ron Mercer, a member of UK’s talented 1996 national title team, was in the gym when Jaland Lowe was just a youngster and would come with his father to watch the workouts.
De’Aaron Fox, a NBA superstar, is from the Houston area and worked with Marland Lowe. That’s why he reached out to Fox when his son was playing with a fractured finger last season on his shooting hand because he knew Fox had played with a similar injury.
“When the season started last year — I’ll put this out to people — from November through January, he (Jaland) was basically playing with a broken ring finger on his left hand. He had a splint on his hand after he fractured it during the Cincinnati scrimmage. It was tough,” Marland Lowe said.
““I reached out to De’Aaron Fox and asked, ‘What do you do? I saw that you have a splint to tie your hand up, how can he get better with this? He’s not shooting well.’”
Not only did Fox share injury insights, but he also talked about his time at Kentucky not knowing that a few months later Jaland Lowe would transfer to UK.
“It’s wild because he shared his experiences up there at Kentucky, just talking about basketball. We didn’t know this would materialize, he just talked about how his experience was and how the fan support was unbelievable,” Marland Lowe said. “He just talked about BBN and was joking, said, ‘One day you might — this is the type of experience you want to have.’”
If that wasn’t enough, former UK standout Aaron Harrison — remember that streak of game-winning shots he had in the 2014 NCAA Tournament — is from the Houston area and also knows the Lowe family.
“I talked to Aaron Harrison — because he’s obviously from Houston,” Marland Lowe said. “He said, ‘It’s like nothing you’ve seen before, it’s phenomenal, to say the least. The fans are like none other — they love basketball, they know basketball. Just the experience, man. Be ready for it, because it’s real.’”
2 Responses
Lowe won’t have to score that much on this team as long as he distributes, defends, and rebounds. Aberdeen may push him for starter’s minutes.
We have the ability to matchup with anyone this year. The problem is how are teams going to matchup against us? With Aberdeen Lowe and Oweh being penciled in as the probable starters who is going to shoot the ball? All 3 are average 3 point shooters but all 3s bread and butter is driving the ball in so I’m wondering who are they going to kick it too for a basket? I like the starting lineup to be Lowe Oweh MoD Croatian Garrison then backups Aberdeen Johnson Chandler Williams Moreno? Until JQ gets healthy. The starting lineup of Lowe Oweh MoD JQ Garrison is almost unfair for any team we play. Can you imagine the defense they are going to play? Garrison should be more of a rim protector this year and his offense should be a little better. How is anyone going to score on us? We will dominate the glass with Mo-D JQ and Garrison and Oweh rebounds good for a guard as does Lowe. I think we are underrated already?! How is that not a top 5 roster? Lowe Oweh Mo-D Aberdeen and JQ could all start for any team?? Then our bench doesn’t fall off any!! I think our bench is easily a top 20 maybe even a top 15 team. It doesn’t really matter who starts in fact I bet he goes with a bunch of different lineups to start the year to see who plays the best together. Now that Perry isn’t on the team they need to go after someone who is going to make the bigs better. I would go after another Almonor someone who doesn’t really have a role but can still come in and give you good minutes in case of a injury or to just change things up.