What is the outlook for Kentucky basketball’s point guard of the future?
Mark Pope’s second Kentucky basketball team will have a new look to it next season. But all eyes, at least at the start, will be on the Wildcats’ new floor general.
Jaland Lowe, a 6-foot-3 guard from Texas, arrives in Lexington and will take over UK’s starting point guard duties after spending two seasons as the starter at Pittsburgh. Lowe’s performance over this period made him one of the most coveted prospects in the transfer portal this offseason. Last season, Lowe averaged 16.8 points, 5.5 assists, 4.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals for the Panthers.
“He’s a guy that’s been through it. He’s a veteran player, put up big numbers last year and carried a huge responsibility last year,” Pope said of Lowe on May 13 during Pope’s first offseason press conference. “It’s very rare that you run into a guy that’s been as pronounced a talent as he has that is dying to play with more talent around him, that wants to be a guy that steps into a program where he wants to stir the drink. He wants to make guys better. He wants to elevate guys and wants to be around guys that have a ton of gravity on the court. He’s hungry to do that. And he’s a special talent.”
Lowe’s offensive profile for next season projects well among his transfer portal peers.
College basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa has Lowe ranked as the No. 20 overall player available in the portal. This makes Lowe, per Miyakawa’s statistics, the third-best arrival for the Wildcats from the portal, behind freshman big man Jayden Quaintance (No. 10) and sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate (No. 18).
Lowe is projected by Miyakawa to have a Bayesian Performance Rating — which represents the number of points per 100 possessions better than the opponent a player’s team is expected to be if the player were on the court with nine other average players — of 5.2 for the 2025-26 season.
Within this BPR figure, it’s Lowe’s offensive game that stands out. His Offensive Bayesian Performance Rating for next season — which reflects the offensive value a player brings to his team when he is on the court — is projected by Miyakawa to be 3.66.
This means UK projects to be 3.66 offensive points per 100 possessions better than the Division I average when Lowe is on the floor. This OBPR projection ranks 14th out of more than 2,300 portal players. It’s the top OBPR number among Kentucky’s six transfer arrivals.
“I love his ability as a playmaker,” Pope said of Lowe, who was originally a four-star prospect in the 2023 high school recruiting class. “I think he’s really special as a playmaker. He’s clearly a capable scorer.”
Lowe’s arrival helped set the stage for what became another successful portal class for Pope and company. Lowe was the second player from the portal to commit to the Wildcats for next season, only behind former Tulane wing Kam Williams.
That Lowe boasts this high of an offensive ceiling is even more impressive given some of his notable limitations.
After shooting a respectable 35.2% from 3-point range as a freshman during the 2023-24 season, Lowe sagged to just 26.6% last season, despite attempting five shots from deep per game. Lowe is also just a 38.1% overall shooter from the field during his college career, which has featured 50 starts and 64 total games played.
Pope — who praised Lowe’s ability as a player who can make difficult shots — will be eager to try and boost Lowe’s shooting numbers. Last season, Kentucky broke a team record for the most 3-pointers made in one season.
“This game for him, coming here, is going to become so much easier and so much more efficient,” Pope said. “He’s going to be surprised, and he knows it, by having a chance to actually get an open catch-and-shoot once in a while, right? And really have guys that demand space on the floor. I expect he’s going to take a massive jump also in his efficiency and his leadership. We’re really excited about him. I think he’s got a huge upside.”
To this point, Miyakawa’s models predict Lowe will shoot 34% from 3-point range next season, which would be an improvement of more than 7% compared to last season.
“That’s actually a lot higher than his career average (29.8%),” Miyakawa said. “Part of that is because there is some predictivity in taking a player’s free-throw shooting percentage and using that as an indicator of how they’ll shoot from 3 going forward. Because, oftentimes, you have a much larger sample size for free-throw shooting, and there’s a little bit less luck involved there.”
“… I don’t think he’ll necessarily be an elite 3-point shooter by any means,” Miyakawa added of Lowe. “But when you look at how good he’s been at the line, and you take that into account, along with who he’s played and his game-by-game history shooting from 3, I think that’s a hopeful sign that he’s going to be improved from outside the arc as well next year.
Where else does Lowe’s offensive value come from?
Let’s start with his distribution skills. Lowe averaged 3.3 assists as a freshman and 5.5 assists as a sophomore at Pittsburgh, against 1.4 turnovers per game during his first college season and 3.0 turnovers per game last season.
Lowe’s 5.5 assists per game were a top-five mark in the ACC last season, and a top reason why he earned All-ACC third-team honors.
According to KenPom, Lowe ranked in the top 55 in the nation last season in assist rate, which is calculated by taking a player’s assists and diving them by the field goals made by the player’s teammates while he’s on the court.
Another reason for Lowe’s high billing as an offensive player comes via his success at the free-throw line. Lowe is a career 87.7% shooter from the charity stripe, which is notable because of his ability to draw fouls. Lowe averaged 5.4 attempts per game from the free-throw line last season, and his total number of free-throw attempts (147) ranked fourth in the ACC.
Lowe is also an example of the adage that the best ability is availability. He started 31 of Pittsburgh’s 32 games last season and averaged 35.5 minutes played per game. In fact, Lowe only missed one game across his two seasons at Pitt. That’s not nothing, especially given the logjam of injuries that Kentucky experienced at guard last season.
“I think sometimes people don’t realize the full value of a point guard who is able to make the rest of the offense really good when he’s on the court,” Miyakawa said. “Even if that player isn’t someone who’s the best scorer themselves, there’s still a ton of value in having someone who’s just able to set the floor, set the table for other teammates, not give the ball (up) too much, knock down your free throws. And, at a minimum, that’s what Lowe does really well… He’s so elite in terms of facilitating that opponents, they’re not going to be able to take away all of his weaponry.”
Jaland Lowe is one of several new guards for UK basketball
Pope and the Wildcats are still waiting on rising senior guard Otega Oweh to make his stay-or-go NBA draft decision. Regardless of Oweh’s choice, Kentucky will be counting heavily on new faces at guard next season.
The Wildcats are set to return rising sophomore Collin Chandler from last season’s team, along with, potentially, Oweh, who has until 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 28 to pull out of the draft and retain his college eligibility.
Aside from those two, it’ll be a new cast of characters for the Cats in the backcourt. This offseason, guards Travis Perry (Ole Miss) and Kerr Kriisa (Cincinnati) both transferred out of the UK program.
The newcomers at guard for Kentucky for the 2025-26 season are Lowe, Denzel Aberdeen (a national champion last season at Florida) and five-star freshman Jasper Johnson. UK will also be bringing in wing Kam Williams, formerly of Tulane. Former high school signee Acaden Lewis, a guard, decommitted from Kentucky in April and will play next season at Villanova.
At the same time, this group of guards gives Kentucky the potential for long-term continuity in the backcourt. Aberdeen and Oweh (should he return to UK) are each entering their senior season. But, they project to be the only UK players who are set to run out of college eligibility.
Chandler, Johnson, Lowe and Williams will all have college eligibility beyond the 2025-26 season.
