A double UK basketball legacy, Jake Feldhaus is making his own name
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When Deron Feldhaus answered a phone call last month from John Pelphrey, the ex-Kentucky forward got a surprise from his former Wildcats teammate.
“We stay in touch,” Feldhaus said. “But this time when John called me, he said ‘This is not a buddy-buddy call. I’m recruiting.’”
That’s when Pelphrey, the head men’s basketball coach at Tennessee Tech University, offered Madison Central junior Jake Feldhaus, Deron’s son, a hoops scholarship.
“A great moment,” Deron Feldhaus said Thursday.
Those who remember when Pelphrey and Feldhaus, along with Richie Farmer and Sean Woods, were part of the four-man class who stuck with UK men’s hoops through a crippling NCAA probation in 1989 to become cornerstones in Rick Pitino’s early-1990s revival of Kentucky basketball will feel the emotional resonance of that offer.
This winter, in Jake Feldhaus’s first season playing for Madison Central after transferring from Mason County, he has become one of the 2024-25 season’s breakout players in Kentucky boys’ high school basketball.
After scoring 30 points and grabbing 11 rebounds in the Indians’ 66-61 loss at Covington Catholic in Friday’s regular-season finale, the 6-foot-7, 205-pound Feldhaus will enter postseason tournament play averaging a double-double, 22.3 points and 11.3 rebounds a game, while making 55.8 percent of his shots and 40.3 percent of his 3-pointers.
On Jan. 9, in a game that opened eyes around the state, Feldhaus went head-to-head against 6-11 Great Crossing center Malachi Moreno — the UK signee and 2025 McDonald’s All-American — and scored 29 points.
“After that game, it was kind of wild,” Jake Feldhaus said. “I didn’t really realize what that game did for me until now. It was such a big, big part of this season and how I got my D-I offers.”
Making this season’s emergence by Feldhaus even more intriguing is a surprising reality: Even though he carries the last name of one of Kentucky’s most-prominent basketball families, hoops has not previously been Jake’s favorite sport.
Kentucky basketball royalty
Jake Feldhaus is a double UK men’s basketball legacy.
His grandfather, Allen Feldhaus Sr., played for Adolph Rupp at Kentucky for three varsity seasons, 1959 through 1962, scoring 299 career points and claiming 320 total rebounds.
Allen Feldhaus Sr.’s youngest son, Deron Feldhuas, logged four varsity seasons, 1988 through 1992, for UK and scored 1,232 points while hauling in 540 boards.
As a high school coach, Allen Feldhaus Sr. built Mason County into a state power. Of the four Mason teams he coached to the Sweet 16, each featured one of his sons — Allen Jr. (1981), Willie (1982) and Deron (1985 and 1987) — as a star player.
Allen Jr. and Willie followed their Dad — who died in 2017 at age 77 — into high school basketball coaching. While Willie had success at schools such as Russell County and Male, Allen Jr. built Madison Central into a power and won the 2013 state tournament championship.
Yet even with all that family basketball legacy, another sport has long been the passion of Jake Feldhaus.
“It’s always been golf, golf, golf,” Deron Feldhaus says of his son.
That is explained by the fact Jake all but grew up at Maysville’s Kenton Station Golf Course, a 9-hole course owned by the Feldhaus family.
“Golf is my first love,” Jake Feldhaus said Thursday.
In basketball in 2023-24, Feldhaus averaged 13 points and 7.9 rebounds as a sophomore for a Mason County team that finished 21-12.
Before this school year, Jake’s parents, who are divorced, decided to send him to Madison Central.
Living with his mom, Amy Huber, in Richmond, Jake would join a Madison Central boys golf team that had won the two previous Kentucky state championships and a basketball team coached by his 61-year-old uncle.
Allen Feldhaus Jr. is known for an aggressive coaching style.
“It’s definitely different,” Jake says. “Uncle Allen was always the guy who would take me to get a milkshake or something. Now, I’m getting ripped in practices and I’m getting ripped on the bench when I’m messing up. Which is good for me. I need that. Everybody needs that.”
Battling the state’s best
Jake Feldhaus made his first contribution to Madison Central in his childhood favorite sport.
He finished 11th in the 2024-25 Kentucky high school golf state championships. That helped Madison Central stave off Trinity by four strokes to win a third-straight team state title.
In basketball, pushed by his uncle, Jake Feldhaus has begun putting up some monster numbers against some of the state’s most-prominent teams.
Feldhaus went for 26 points and 19 rebounds vs. Bryan Station in December. Last month, he had 35 points and 12 boards vs. Frederick Douglass and 30 points and 12 rebounds against Trinity.
Even when Feldhaus did not shoot well (3 of 13) against Lexington Catholic earlier this month, he still finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds.
“He’s really never concentrated on basketball before, it’s been golf,” Allen Feldhaus Jr. says. “Now, I think that’s kind of switched. I think he’s kind of found that love for (hoops), that itch for it.”
Jake Feldhaus, like his father, stands 6-7. That, however, is where the physical similarities between the two end.
“Deron was very short-waisted and short-armed,” Allen Feldhaus Jr. says. “Jake’s built more like his mom. He’s got like a 6-9, 6-10 wingspan. Huge hands, long legs. He plays ‘longer’ than 6-7.”
In his 29-point game against Great Crossing on Jan. 9, Feldhaus hit 4 of 8 3-pointers and 10 of 16 shots.
“Once I started making 3s, it kind of gave me a second option to shot fake and go to the basket,” Feldhaus says. “I just kind of found success in doing that.”
College recruiters calling
Inspired by Jake’s improvement this winter, Deron Feldhaus says he has let itself dream that his son’s game could grow enough to allow him to become a third-generation Kentucky Wildcat.
“I think that would be awesome,” Deron Feldhaus said. “I’m not sure he’s to that level, but when I signed (with UK), I questioned if I was at that level. You’ve got to have your dreams.”
Rather than concentrate on golf this coming spring and summer, Jake Feldhaus will play AAU basketball for the first time. He will join Indiana Elite, the same program that helped Moreno and ex-Lyon County star Travis Perry earn UK scholarships.
“Nobody knows about (Jake) because he’s never played AAU,” Allen Feldhaus Jr. says. “That’s where you get your college exposure now, playing AAU.”
First things first, Jake Feldhaus will open his first tournament run at his new high school Monday when Madison Central (18-11) faces county rival Madison Southern (14-15) in the 44th District semifinals at Eastern Kentucky University at 7:45 p.m. (EST).
As for the colleges that do presently know about Jake Feldhaus, Jacksonville, hometown EKU and Tennessee Tech — and Pelphrey — have so far offered.
The Madison Central standout is well-steeped enough in his family’s hoops history to understand why John Pelphrey offering a basketball scholarship to the son of Deron Feldhaus is sentimental for many hoops fans in the commonwealth.
“For sure,” Jake Feldhaus says. “I do understand why that’s special.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 7:27 AM.
