The mystery man of this Kentucky basketball team is still figuring things out
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jelavic arrived in August, missed summer practice, and raced to catch up.
- NCAA cleared him in 2025; coaches report fast learning and growing impact.
- Long perimeter forward projects as primary backup 4 who spaces floor.
The past few weeks in the life of Andrija Jelavic have been a process.
Kentucky’s latest international basketball prospect — Jelavic was born and raised in Croatia — only arrived in Lexington in August, missing out on all eight weeks of the team’s summer practice schedule before being thrown to the Wildcats late last month.
That went about as expected.
“The first week, it was tough,” Jelavic said. “I’m not gonna lie.”
The 6-foot-11, 225-pound forward acknowledged that he spent that first week of full preseason practice in catch-up mode. Last Monday marked the start of week two with the Wildcats, and he began to feel more comfortable on the court.
“I knew how to score,” he said. “I was just struggling with, like, finishing — keeping the ball in my hand. Because guys here have really, really fast hands. They move pretty fast. And just the pace and the energy we require is really high.”
By the end of last week, things started to click.
“I think last Thursday, Friday, Saturday — it was the first three practices that I was really good,” he said. “That I had a really big impact. I scored a lot. I assisted a lot. Rebounded a lot. So I’m expecting a lot from this week. Of course, in my opinion, I’ll be fully ready for the beginning of the season.”
To Jelavic, that means the exhibition opener against Purdue on Oct. 24 in Rupp Arena, not the real start to the regular season, which tips off Nov. 4 against Nicholls in Rupp.
That gives him just a little more than two weeks to get to where he wants to be.
Jelavic, who played the past two seasons for a professional team in Serbia — and, according to FIBA records, turned 21 years old in May — received some good news recently. As the Herald-Leader reported Monday morning, he’s already been ruled eligible by the NCAA.
“It’s really great to put him in the mix and know that he’s going to be in the mix from day one. That’s wonderful,” UK coach Mark Pope said Monday afternoon of that ruling. “Summer is important for us, so he came in, you know, eight full weeks of study and work behind, and that’s hard — the way we play that’s so decision intensive and learning intensive.
“And since he started in the fall, it’s been a mad dash to try and catch up. And I think his first couple of weeks, he was like, ‘Man, what have I signed up for?’ But he’s actually showing some signs now of catching up, and he’s gonna be really fun.”
Jelavic’s teammates have watched that progression, too.
Jaland Lowe, who’s expected to be UK’s starting point guard, said Jelavic was a quick learner, as far as knowing what he was supposed to be doing on the court. But knowing and doing are two separate things.
Jelavic has had to process all of this new information while also acclimating to a new style of basketball. It’s not that the game is that much faster here than what he was accustomed to in Europe, though it is. And it’s not that his teammates are that much more physical than the players he faced overseas, though that’s also the case.
It’s the combination of the two, he explained.
“It’s more like, when you catch a ball in the paint, there’s like already four guys on you,” Jelavic said.
So, it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride at the Joe Craft Center so far, but he’s getting there.
“I’m seeing someone that plays hard,” teammate Mouhamed Dioubate said. “Someone that’s trying to learn the game, learn the system each and every day. You know, he’s coming from a way different style of basketball in Europe. But I see him adjusting. I see him getting better every day. He’s learning the plays better. He’s learning some of our terminologies and the way we play.
“I see him being a good player for us.”
Andrija Jelavic’s role at Kentucky
As far as immediate expectations for Jelavic, it’s difficult to project.
Starting out behind his teammates isn’t ideal. Sophomore guard Collin Chandler knows something about that. He came to Lexington straight off a two-year Mormon mission last preseason — barely touching a basketball at all over that stretch — and had a difficult adjustment.
“I mean, coming in weeks behind has been hard, but he’s handled it with a lot of grace and with a lot of patience,” Chandler said. “And so he’s just going to continue to grow.”
Early impressions of his new teammate?
“He’s long, and he can shoot the ball, too,” Chandler said. “He’s a great shooter, and so that’s always great for a team, especially for us, because we need shooters — people that are going to space the floor out. So he’ll be great for us.”
Jelavic, of course, isn’t coming to Kentucky without playing basketball for two years. He’s been playing it at a fairly high level overseas. This past season, he averaged 11.0 points and 7.4 rebounds in 27.8 minutes per game, shooting 32.1% from 3-point range.
He projects as a better long-range shooter than that in college, and Pope will be looking to spread the floor and let it fly again this season.
According to UK’s in-house shot-tracking numbers, returning star Otega Oweh has put up the most attempts in the Craft Center over the past month. As of Monday afternoon, Oweh had shot 8,209 balls over the previous 30 days. Next on that list: Jelavic, with 7,848 attempts.
With Dioubate — a powerful, athletic forward — expected to start for the Cats at the 4 spot, Jelavic — a perimeter-oriented player with great length — could be his primary backup. Oweh teased such an arrangement in an interview with the Herald-Leader last week.
“He’s late, so he’s still trying to figure everything out,” Oweh said of his first impressions. “But he’s definitely, definitely got some skill to him. I feel like he’s definitely gonna be helpful to us, because it gives us two styles at that 4 spot, just to switch up and throw different looks at teams.”
While Jelavic is new to Lexington, he’s no stranger to Kentucky basketball. He closely followed the path of fellow Croatian forward Zvonimir Ivisic, who endured a lengthy eligibility battle with the NCAA two seasons ago before finally being cleared.
“I started following college basketball — and, of course, Kentucky — when Z went to college,” he said. “I mean, he was like the first Balkan, European player who went to a really legendary college like Kentucky. And it was a big deal when he did.”
Ivisic had an electric debut for the Wildcats, but his delayed start ultimately led to a diminished role. After that one season, he followed former UK coach John Calipari to Arkansas, where he played last season. Ivisic will play for Illinois this season after transferring again.
When Jelavic committed to Kentucky, he said Ivisic reached out to tell him how much he would enjoy being a Wildcat. According to Jelavic, “He always says, of all the places (he’s been), ‘I like it the most here.’”
Ivisic also battled injury and illness during his first few weeks in the United States, setbacks that further delayed his progress. He and Calipari both acknowledged at the time that the Croatian native struggled with American food upon his arrival. Ivisic passed along a warning there.
“I mean, the one thing I knew about him is that he killed himself with the Papa John’s pizza the first two weeks, so he was really sick,” Jelavic said. “So he said, ‘Don’t do that.’ He didn’t give me any other warnings.”
Jelavic has had no such issues, he said with a smile. He likes Lexington. And he likes Pope, too. He said the second-year UK coach has been more “calm” and “friendly” than what he grew accustomed to back home. That’s been a positive amid this transition.
“Even when you make a mistake, he says, ‘I really love this, but I would love this even more if you did this, this, this,’” Jelavic said. “I think it’s a better way of learning than just yelling when you make mistakes. So I think that’s something I like about him.”
