UK Athletics Photo
Kentucky confirmed Thursday that 6-foot-8 wing Braydon Hawthorne, the highest-ranked high school player remaining in the class of 2025, has officially signed with the Wildcats after he announced his commitment on Wednesday.
“Braydon Hawthorne probably has the steepest trajectory of anybody in the class of 2025,” head coach Mark Pope said in the release from UK. “He is a great learner, a 4.0 student and highly skilled. His ceiling is incredible, and he really wants to be here at Kentucky.
“I love the fact that he wants to come and compete and that he’s dying to get better every single day.”
Hawthorne is a consensus four-star prospect out of Beckley, W.Va., who grew up a Kentucky fan. He played at Huntington Prep last season and was one of the fastest risers in the 2025 recruiting rankings. He climbed into the top 75 of the 247Sports rankings by February and rose to No. 33 by the end of the season.
Hawthorne, who originally committed to West Virginia, was ranked as the best prep player in West Virginia after averaging 23.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game last season at Huntington against an elite national schedule.
Huntington Prep coach Arkell Bruce believes Pope is getting a future star.
“He does a lot of things really well. He is going to be a high level shooter,” Bruce said. “He is really a shooting guard who is just long and 6-8. He can really handle the ball, too.
“He has got to get stronger at this next level so he does not get bumped around. But he really can handle the ball and shoot. Early on he will be a high level shooter and then take on more of a role where he is making plays for others. He’s going to be very good.”
2 Responses
It will be interesting to see how much PT Hawthorne gets with us already being 2 deep (assuming that Oweh returns) with solid players at both the shooting guard and small forward positions. As a result, Chandler and Noah are already looking at limited PT this season. This will most likely see one or both hit the transfer portal in 2026. That’s what happens when guys get recruited over. That is why Perry left. Many, including me, said Perry was not up to playing in the SEC after last season and yet Beard at Ole Miss aggressively pursued Perry when he entered the portal. Can Beard coach up his defense and get his offense on track? A lot of people will be keeping their eye on that project.
Watch out I can see a possible redshirt coming to Hawthorne and Potter why not? Why waste a year sitting on the end of the bench when you get paid now to even take a redshirt. Both of them need to hit the weight room. Both of them need to gain at least 15-20 pounds of muscle but then again you never know maybe the Croatian is the most far behind than anybody. As you could tell with Big Z as he improved so much from his freshman to his sophomore season. That’s with cal coaching him who can’t really improve his guys that’s why he gets 5*s because he can’t develop. Big Z will dominate this year with his brother at Illinois. He actually has coaches that teach you how to play at Illinois. Back to what I was saying Potter might be more ready then the Croatian you never know.