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Jaland Lowe wanted to test his NBA draft stock after announcing he was transferring from Pittsburgh to Kentucky as players are allowed to do without jeopardizing their collegiate eligibility.
Lowe’s father, Marland, had indicated his son had no plans not to be at Kentucky playing point guard for coach Mark Pope next season and now that is official.
“Can’t miss out on this opportunity. See you soon BBN,” Lowe posted on social media Thursday.
Lowe was ranked as the 10th best point guard in the transfer portal and now will know what NBA scouts need to see from him this season before the 2026 draft. The 6-3, 175-pound Lowe averaged 16.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game at Pitt last season and started 31 games. He scored in double figures in 26 games and had nine 20-point games and one double-double. In a 93-48 win over VMI, Lowe had a triple-double — 11 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists.
Pope has made it clear that he expects Lowe to be the starting point guard and run the UK offense next season. He’s hinted Lowe could be the biggest key to the team’s success with his ability to initiate the offense and also hopefully improve his shooting percentage by not having to take so many difficult shots like he did at Pitt.
“I’m excited to get him here and hyper-speed his game. We’re going to really unleash him and push him to play with as much pace as he possibly can,” Pope said after Lowe’s transfer announcement.” He’s so athletic. He’s got such a herky, jerky nature to his game. He’s like an elite-level tailback that can cut, like his cuts could be a 270 degree like, on a dime, cut, change direction.
“He proved to do everything at Pitt. He was an elite level scorer, he’s incredible at getting to the free throw line, he was almost six assists a game. He had a real presence on the ball. He’s got a complete package.”
Pope also anticipates Lowe will be an “elite-level leader” and make his mark as one of UK’s special point guards.
One Response
Jaland Lowe is the key to how far we go. He’s excellent at getting to wherever he wants to go on the court and his first couple of steps are deadly. He’s is a step faster than Butler but not as great of a perimeter defender as Butler is and he’s much more polished on offense than Butler is he’s definitely a little better than Butler at this point in there careers. I can see Lowe take a dip in his production and still be a much more complete player compared to last year. I think he will be around 13-14 ppg and probably 7-8 assist per game. He was almost averaging 6 assist per game on one of the most terrible teams in a bad ACC. So it should be very easy for him to average 7-8 assist per game. We need a facilitating point guard not necessarily a score first point guard we have plenty of options at scoring points. We need someone who is going to play good defense and set his teammates up for baskets. If he can flourish in that role your looking at a national championship contender. We go as far as Lowe takes us and he might be the most important player on this team. He has alot riding on his shoulders but I think he is the type of guy who embraces the pressure and plays better when the pressure is on. With Lowe and possibly Oweh as our back court we might have the strongest back court in college basketball there is only a couple of teams who have 2 all conference guards on the team the only other team is Louisville. They have 3 all conference guards and a McDonald’s all american. They Kentucky Louisville game will come down to who’s more hungry early in the season. I’m glad Pope didn’t schedule any cupcakes for exhibition games we will be ready. We are more stacked top to bottom than Louisville but they have 9 very good basketball players we have 14 and that’s the difference. We will have to run them out the gym and tire there bigs. They only have 3 bigs with Khalifa being ruled ineligible. So we shall see November 11th just how good we really are!