The most intriguing player on the UK men’s basketball roster is not who you think
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- Braydon Hawthorne redshirted his true freshman year at Kentucky for developmental reasons.
- Hawthorne added 19 pounds during his redshirt year, growing from 173 to 192 pounds.
- Hawthorne said increased strength and confidence let him reach any spot on the court.
Having a whole season in 2026-27 to watch Milan Momcilovic shoot the basketball in a Kentucky uniform will be a blast.
It will be interesting to gauge how much UK returnees Malachi Moreno and Kam Williams improve from season to season. It will be fun to see what transfer guards Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins look like as Cats.
Yet the Kentucky men’s hoops player I am most intrigued to watch in the coming season is none of those five. It is UK’s man of mystery, redshirt freshman wing Braydon Hawthorne.
In men’s college basketball as it exists in the third decade of the 21st Century, the 6-foot-8, 192-pound Hawthorne is something almost as rare as a set shot.
The Huntington, West Virginia product was a highly-regarded high school recruit — rated the No. 33 prospect in the 24/7 Sports composite rankings for the Class of 2025 — who sat out his true freshman season in college for developmental, not medical, reasons.
Unless you had access to Mark Pope’s practices last season, the only chances to see Hawthorne on the basketball court in 2025-26 came in warmups prior to UK playing.
For those who got to Kentucky games early, it was notable how hard Hawthorne appeared to work in those pregame settings for a player who was not going to see the court once the competition commenced.
Part of the intrigue around Hawthorne is that the scuttlebutt coming from those who did get to watch the Cats practice last winter was that the willowy wing may have had the highest talent ceiling in the Kentucky program.
For his part, Hawthorne said redshirting was a necessary means to build his body to a sufficient level of strength to meet the rigors of college hoops.
Where many students enter college seeking to avoid gaining the “freshman 15,” Hawthorne spent his first year at UK eating three to four meals a day — with snacks in between — trying to add weight.
In St. Louis prior to Kentucky opening NCAA Tournament play this past March, Hawthorne shared his freshman-year dietary regimen.
An omelette and/or French toast for breakfast.
“A lot of protein, rice and vegetables” for subsequent meals.
In between meals, “there were snacks,” Hawthorne said. “Fruit, beef jerky, just (to) hold me over (until) I can get to my next meal.”
The combination of a weightlifting regimen and his meal plan, Hawthorne said in March, had led to him adding 19 pounds since starting college, going from 173 to 192 pounds.
“It’s been a big jump,” he said.
In its 2026 NCAA Tournament opener, Kentucky got an up close look at what a developmental redshirt season can mean for a player.
Santa Clara redshirt freshman standout Allen Graves hit the tie-breaking 3-pointer with 2.4 seconds left that would have sent the Cats home from March Madness — had UK star Otega Oweh not matched it with a buzzer-beating, banked-in 32-foot trey to force overtime.
In what became an 89-84 OT victory for the Cats, the 6-9, 225-pound Graves finished with 17 points and seven rebounds.
Having declared for the NBA draft, Graves, a lightly-recruited product of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, is now projected as a potential first-round pick.
In St. Louis, Graves said he, too, used his redshirt season to change his body.
“Being able to attack that year in the weight room, rather than on the court, getting my body right, getting stronger,” Graves said of how he most benefitted from redshirting.
The change Graves needed to make to his body during his redshirt year was the opposite of the task faced by Hawthorne.
“I called myself ‘Chubby Allen’ early on,” Graves said. “I got rid of a lot of fat and turned it into muscle. I lost weight, then I gained it back better.”
On the basketball court, Graves said his redshirt season allowed him to “attack every aspect of my game each and every day. (It) was definitely very beneficial for me coming into this year.”
For what became his only college season, Graves averaged 11.8 points, 6.5 rebounds, 1.8 assists and shot 51.2% for a team that finished 26-9.
Though he has not yet had the chance to show it in live action, Hawthorne said he noticed last season in practice that, as his body developed, his game improved.
“I feel like when I got here, the defense dictated what I could do,” he said. “Now, I feel like I can get wherever I want (on the court). That’s the difference, I feel like, in my game. I feel like (added) strength plays a part (in improvement) and, then, mostly it’s confidence.”
Part of what makes Hawthorne fascinating as a player is confidence. He seems to have an abundance of it.
In St. Louis, I asked him what his goals were for 2026-27.
“I want to be one of the best players in college basketball,” Hawthorne said, matter-of-factly.
Mix all this together, and it explains why Braydon Hawthorne is the most intriguing player on the 2026-27 Kentucky roster.
