BASKETBALL Kentucky’s players have already formed an opinion of their new point guard
By UK Athletics| John Clay First impressions are important. That’s especially true of presumptive starting point guards new to a team with realistic national championship aspirations amid a roster filled with strangers. The first impressions of Kentucky basketball newcomer Jaland Lowe? “A guard that can score and pass?” new backcourt teammate Denzel Aberdeen said, before answering his own rhetorical question. “I can play with him.” That pretty much sums up the early returns on Lowe, a 6-foot-3 junior from the Houston metropolitan area who spent the past two seasons at Pittsburgh before opting to join Mark Pope’s program out of the transfer portal. “He’s a real point guard. He’s a true point guard,” said fellow transfer Mouhamed Dioubate, who played the last two seasons alongside Mark Sears at Alabama. “He makes the right decisions, the right reads. He’s becoming more vocal. The first week we got here, he wasn’t as talkative. But I feel like he’s comfortable now. And his talking off the court — the bond that we have off the court is translating onto the court — and it’s making him more comfortable, making him more of a leader on the court.” Sophomore forward Trent Noah, one of UK’s returnees from last season, called Lowe “a great dude” off the court and said the newcomer had already become one of his closest friends on the team. On the court? “He’s an ultra-quick guard. He can really dance with the ball,” Noah said. “He’s good out of ball screens. He’s a really good shooter. I know his percentage wasn’t great last year, but he took a lot of them. And he took a lot of difficult ones, because he had to in that offense. But he’s incredible. I really like his game a lot.” Back to Aberdeen, who won a national title at Florida this past season — playing alongside Walter Clayton Jr. and other dynamic guards — and will share the backcourt with Lowe, likely spelling him at the point and perhaps starting alongside him. “He’s very flashy — a very quick guard. He has everything,” Aberdeen said. “He can be a pro.” Another guy who could be a pro? Otega Oweh, the Wildcats’ leading scorer in Pope’s first season. Oweh, often succinct in his assessments, was just that in assessing Lowe. “J Lowe is a quick, shifty, speedy guard,” he said, noting how well Lowe and Aberdeen should complement each other in UK’s backcourt. “Playing alongside him is gonna be fun. It’s going to be great,” Aberdeen said. “It’s going to be scary for a lot of people, too.” And the possible starting backcourt of Lowe, Aberdeen and Oweh? The thought of that brought a grin to the ex-Gator’s face. “Very scary,” he said. “Very scary, for sure.” All of this adoration for Lowe was deflected back on those singing his praises. Earlier this week, the 20-year-old held court in the Memorial Coliseum media room for half an hour, smiling and laughing through his first meeting with local reporters and assigning superlatives to his new teammates at every opportunity. Lowe loves Lexington — “a beautiful city,” he said — while at the same time noting that living in the laid-back town with little distraction has allowed him to concentrate fully on his game, his teammates and his aspirations for the 2025-26 season. The past few weeks have been spent learning his fellow Wildcats’ tendencies and personalities on and off the court, a crucial first step for a veteran college point guard looking to lead. “It’s been everything I’ve wanted and more,” Lowe said. “The guys are amazing.” New Kentucky point guard Jaland Lowe met with reporters in Lexington for the first time this week. Tasha Poullard tpoullard@herald-leader.com A new Jaland Lowe? Cut through the talk, look at the numbers, and — on paper, at least — Lowe’s profile doesn’t fit the kind of guy that these Kentucky players have been gushing about. Last season at Pitt, he took 14.3 shots per game. (For sake of reference, Oweh led all UK players with 11.5 shots per game in 2024-25.) Lowe shot just 37.6% with all of those opportunities. He was only 26.6% from 3-point range. He averaged 5.5 assists per game, but he also averaged 3.0 turnovers, one of the worst numbers in the ACC last season. Not great. But, to Noah’s earlier point, this season should be different. “I feel like the system that we’re playing in benefits everybody,” he said. “The way that we play, it just makes it easier for everybody. You just don’t have to do too much.” That’s what Pope is banking on, and that’s why he went hard after Lowe as soon as he hit the portal. UK’s coach was on the phone with the high-upside point guard the same night that he officially put his name on the NCAA’s transfer list. By the next day, Pope had flown to Minnesota — where Lowe was going through the NBA draft process — to meet with him in person. Some of his numbers look a little shaky, to be kind, but the analytics (and the eyeballs) say there should be a lot more to Lowe’s game. And Pope is primed to get it out of him. Lowe knows that some folks take a look at his stats alone and form their opinions. “See, a lot of people got it mixed up that Jaland Lowe just wants to shoot the ball and jack stuff up,” he said. “No, I love passing the ball. I’ve always told people I get more joy in an assist than scoring a basket. My whole life, I’ve been a point guard. That’s what I am. I mean, I know how to score the ball at a really high level still — so, people, don’t get that twisted — but I love passing the ball. And that’s always been natural for me. So being able to do that here will just, I feel like, make everything open up.” That’s the plan. And Lowe is all in on executing it, even though that’ll mean fewer shots for himself and likely a drop in scoring. He averaged 16.8 points per game last season for a team that was seeded 12th in the league tournament amid a very, very down year for the league. Last season, Lowe had to pretty much do it all. That won’t be the case at Kentucky. With Aberdeen and Oweh (and Jasper Johnson and Collin Chandler and Kam Williams and all the rest) beside him, everything should indeed come easier to UK’s new point guard. “We got a lot of guys who can shoot the ball when need be,” he said. “You know, make a play on their own. So just having other really gifted guys, you just can sit back sometimes and be like, ‘Here.’ That’s just what it is sometimes.” That’s part of the reason Lowe wanted to be here. And he’s been waiting years for the opportunity. When Lowe — a self-described “gym rat” and the son of prominent grassroots basketball figure Marland Lowe — was a kid, he said he had a list with eight or so major college programs taped to his wall. It was a checklist, in fact, each line ready to be marked off when he got a scholarship offer from that school. “I got absolutely none,” he said with a big laugh this week, joking that he would have to track down that list the next time he was home. Kentucky, of course, was one of the teams written on it, and he can check off the Wildcats now. Lowe will spend at least one season in Lexington, and he has two years of remaining eligibility, along with dreams of making it to the NBA draft, either next year or the one after that. Decision-makers in the league already know his game. He’s been on the NBA radar for a while now, but last season — with everything at Pitt on his shoulders — didn’t move the needle. As he went through the process this offseason — including an invitation to the G League Combine — the feedback was clear. The two main objectives: win games and make everybody around you better. “And that’s exactly what I want to do,” he said. “I didn’t need them to tell me that. I wanted to come in here and win a championship anyways.” As he looks around the gym on practice days, chats with his teammates off the court and walks into the team facility early in the morning or late at night to the sound of bouncing basketballs, Lowe sees a place where a guy like him can thrive. “A cool, calm, collected playmaker who just wants to make his teammates better, but, at the same time, is always a threat to just do everything on the court,” he said of his own game. “I want to really tap in this year and just be able to do everything at a very high level. Play defense at a high level. Distribute at a high level. I definitely want to get that up a lot more. And just be a really good leader. “And I feel like these guys have really helped me see that that is possible.” Read Next UK MEN’S BASKETBALL What is the outlook for Kentucky basketball’s point guard of the future? May 21, 2025 6:30 AM Read Next UK MEN’S BASKETBALL One UK basketball newcomer has exactly what Mark Pope wants. And he knows it June 25, 2025 6:30 AM Read Next UK MEN’S BASKETBALL Trent Noah 2.0? A Kentucky basketball fan favorite has big plans for the future June 20, 2025 6:30 AM Read Next UK MEN’S BASKETBALL What we still don’t know about Kentucky’s 2025-26 basketball schedule July 2, 2025 6:30 AM Read Next UK MEN’S BASKETBALL What is Kentucky basketball’s early outlook for the 2026 NBA draft? July 1, 2025 6:40 AM Ben Roberts Lexington Herald-Leader 859-429-2848 Ben Roberts is the University of Kentucky men’s basketball beat writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. He has previously specialized in UK basketball recruiting coverage and created and maintained the Next Cats blog. He is a Franklin County native and first joined the Herald-Leader in 2006. 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