Kentucky’s next foe has the SEC’s worst record. And perhaps the league’s brightest star
This hasn’t been the season that South Carolina — the next team on the Kentucky men’s basketball schedule — had been hoping for halfway through SEC play.
The Gamecocks are only one year removed from being picked to finish last in the league and ending up just one victory short of the SEC regular-season championship instead. This time around, they’re 0-9 in the conference, dead last in the 16-team standings.
That doesn’t mean they’re not capable of pulling an upset on any given night. They’ve already taken some of the league’s best teams to the absolute limit.
It helps to have one of the most promising players in all of college basketball on their roster.
Collin Murray-Boyles began the season as arguably the top NBA draft prospect in the SEC, and he’s still firmly in that conversation as the 2024-25 campaign draws closer to its end.
The 6-foot-7, 245-pound forward from Columbia, South Carolina, was well-regarded as a pro prospect after his freshman season last year, but he didn’t even go through the NBA draft process in 2024, opting instead to return to his hometown school without any drawn-out, stay-or-go drama.
“I think just knowing where I was at and just knowing what I can do to improve,” Murray-Boyles said of that decision. “And just knowing that it wasn’t my goal. Like, my goal coming to college was never to be a one and done. I was always just focused on being here with my college and just playing at the best of my ability. And the draft wasn’t really my number one priority.”
After that freshman season, Murray-Boyles was projected by some as a possible first-round draft pick. Staying in school — without even testing the waters — could have been a risk. But, even with South Carolina struggling as a team, the 20-year-old sophomore has retained his lofty draft status.
The most recent update to ESPN’s list of the top 100 prospects for the 2025 NBA draft had Murray-Boyles at No. 19, with Oklahoma point guard Jeremiah Fears (No. 10) and Texas shooting guard Tre Johnson (No. 11) as the only SEC players ahead of him.
And Murray-Boyles’ unique skill set — along with his untapped potential as a shooter — could lead an interested NBA team to reach for him closer to the top of the draft. (Other mock drafts have him as high as top-10 range.)
South Carolina’s player to watch
Going into Saturday’s game in Rupp Arena, he’s averaging 15.5 points and 8.8 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.6 steals per game. He’s also shooting 59.7% from the field — amazingly, the exact same number as last season, though he’s taken three more shots per game on average this season — and ranks seventh among high-major players nationally in that stat.
Murray-Boyles has long attracted the attention of NBA scouts with his versatility, particularly on defense. The individual metrics at EvanMiya.com grade him as the No. 3 defensive player nationally — behind only Auburn’s Johni Broome and Mississippi State’s Cameron Matthews — this season.
In a preseason discussion with the Herald-Leader and other media outlets, Murray-Boyles mentioned his toughest defensive assignments from his freshman year, and the list he rattled off showed just how much he’s used all over the court.
For example, two names on his list: Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard (a lightning-quick, 5-11 guard who’s among the best scorers in the SEC) and his former MSU teammate Tolu Smith (a 6-11, 245-pound forward who was a physical, All-SEC-caliber frontcourt player).
Murray-Boyles simply smiled when that size and skill set difference was mentioned.
“That’s one of my biggest emphases — being versatile on the defensive end,” he said. “I think that’s one thing that I’ve taken as one of my number one objectives to do, just being able to guard multiple positions. I think that’s what I look forward to in a game, really, is the defensive side, because I like playing defense.
“So, I don’t know, I just like it. I like guarding different people.”
That same day, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris mentioned Murray-Boyles’ defensive versatility — “He takes a lot of pride in doing that,” Paris confirmed — but the reigning SEC coach of the year also drew attention to his young player’s offensive capabilities.
“He’s got a tremendous feel for the game of basketball,” Paris told the Herald-Leader. “He’s incredibly unselfish — probably too unselfish. But he’s incredibly unselfish. … I think the things that really make him different are he’s got an incredible feel, incredible touch, and just a knack for putting the ball in the basket, even in some non-conventional ways.”
The offensive trait that’s all-important in the NBA these days — 3-point shooting — is not Murray-Boyles’ forte. He missed all five 3-pointers he took as a freshman and is just 5-for-20 from deep through 22 games as a sophomore, though he said he worked on that part of his game all summer.
At 20 years old, however, there’s still time for that attribute to develop. Kentucky fans are familiar with the concept of young players not necessarily being 3-point threats in college before blooming into dangerous long-range shooters at the NBA level.
“I think he has such good natural touch,” Paris said. “At one point, I do believe he’ll be able to shoot the ball with range. Only time will tell when that happens.”
If it does happen down the line, that could make him a steal in this 2025 draft class. Even if it doesn’t, his basketball smarts and unique ability to impact a game make him an intriguing pick.
No easy game for Kentucky
Four weeks ago — against now-No. 1 Auburn — Murray-Boyles scored 25 points and went 10-for-18 from the floor, drawing seven free throws against one of the best defensive teams in the country.
Last weekend against now-No. 10 Texas A&M, he had 22 points, seven rebounds, six assists, two blocks, two steals and went 11-for-16 from the floor. The Gamecocks had 19 assists in that game, and Murray-Boyles said afterward that it was the team’s “best game moving the ball, for sure” this season.
That’s not a great sign for a Kentucky team that allowed Ole Miss to dish out 24 assists while forcing only one turnover in an ugly loss Tuesday night. And don’t be fooled by South Carolina’s 0-9 league mark. The Gamecocks can play with anyone in the SEC.
Among those defeats: a 76-72 loss to Texas A&M (No. 10 in the AP Top 25), an overtime loss to Mississippi State (No. 22), a 70-69 loss to Florida (No. 6), a 66-63 loss to Auburn (No. 1) and a 66-63 loss at Vanderbilt, which beat Kentucky just two weeks ago.
UK coach Mark Pope is also well familiar with Murray-Boyles’ game. While the young star is a native of Columbia, he played his senior season of high school at Wasatch Academy, a Utah prep powerhouse that Pope recruited regularly when he was head coach at BYU.
The Kentucky coach immediately started smiling at the mention of Murray-Boyles’ name. “He’s awesome,” said Pope, who launched into an explanation of how much fun it is to watch him dictate the flow of the game and how difficult it is to try and get him outside of his comfort zone.
“He’s more interested in seeing how much he can suck you in,” Pope said. “... Most of us are, for lack of a better way to say it, doing the game. We’re trying to do what we’re supposed to do in the game. And then there’s some guys that you watch like, ‘Oh, he’s playing.’ Like, ‘He’s playing. He’s actually teasing the game. He’s, like, trying to move all the pieces.’ He’s a terrific player.”
Murray-Boyles said he was able to attend some BYU games during his year in Utah and liked what he saw from the new UK coach. “We got to meet up with him. He’s a really good guy, for sure,”
Pope and the Wildcats could have their hands full with him Saturday afternoon.
Speaking after the narrow loss to Auburn last month, Paris said he’d been working with his team about getting downhill, playing more physically toward the basket and finishing strong.
Murray-Boyles got singled out afterward for his attention to detail there.
“He’s very powerful,” Paris said. “I reserve that word. You can go in the weight room and push weight around. And that might make you strong. I don’t know that that makes you powerful. He’s a powerful guy. And so, when he gets downhill like that and he uses it to his advantage — which he did today — you can see some of that explosion and power.
“We need him to be aggressive. … I want all of our guys to be aggressive. But, certainly, Collin is better-suited to be a guy who’s initiating offense and being aggressive.”
Saturday
South Carolina at No. 14 Kentucky
When: Noon
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: South Carolina 10-12 (0-9 SEC), Kentucky 15-7 (4-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 54-15
Last meeting: South Carolina won 79-62 on Jan. 23, 2024, in Columbia, S.C.
This story was originally published February 6, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
