BREAKING: Kentucky Wildcats LOSE Jaland Lowe, Multi-MILLION Dollar Pursuit for Top Guard Begins!

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With the departure of Jalen though, Kentucky now has a ton of money they can work with to

get their next star point guard.

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All right, what's going on, big blue nation.

Welcome on into locked on Kentucky, your daily Kentucky Wildcats podcast.

I'm your host Lance Dullin on today's episode of the show, Jalen though out the door,

which means Kentucky's got a ton of money to work with at point guard.

We'll talk about maybe where the Wildcats might go in the portal, as well as Tyron Stokes,

a potential commitment date set, would he end up going to the Wildcats or is he going

to stick with the J-OX as it has been rumored for quite some time.

And then to wrap up the show, there's a player in the portal right now that maybe you've

seen on Twitter, a highlight reel or two that I'm really excited about because all of

the video and everything you're seeing about this kid is about his offense.

But it's his defense that really does shine excited to break him down today's episode

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as well got an audience of one today on the show.

I don't think I've ever done that before and let me tell you something.

They rip through their mattress topper and you think they are like a raccoon or like

a stray dog or a dog board at home.

Or perhaps a wild cat.

And we're down one here, unfortunately, as Jalen though is out the door starting point

guard for wild cats only got to see him for a few games continued to dislocate his shoulder

through practice after the Louisville game against St. John's against Missouri.

I mean, it was just a constant constant stream of injuries here for the cats, but Jalen

though not able to quite shake that shoulder injury ended up having surgery.

And the first thing I want to say here is that I wish him the best.

I think that the decision to leave Lexington was probably within his best interest.

And according to some reporting, it seemed like it was also in the interest of Kentucky

as well.

But this kid fought for all of the criticisms and all of the negative things that I've

had to say about this team about their lack of effort, about their willpower, about their

desire to power through tough situations.

Jalen low continued to try and fight back to play for this team.

You could tell he clearly loved these guys.

He loved playing his point guard for these for these guys.

And honestly, Kentucky needed him in a way that I think we will all forever think about.

It's just how desperately Kentucky needed their lead guard.

They didn't really get him.

I wish him the best.

He fought hard.

I think is a great kid.

And I really do hope he succeeds wherever he goes.

However, there are a couple of things here that I think are really, really good positives.

Now that Jalen low is gone, moving forward for Kentucky.

Now it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to happen.

It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get the point guard of their dreams.

It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get a guy who can score efficiently, who has

that athleticism, the burst in the talent that we so desperately need at this position.

But two things are true here.

Kentucky's got a lot of money to play with.

And they want to spin big.

That's been the reporting.

Obviously, you can go read whatever you want behind a paywall to kind of get more details

as to how they want to go about that.

But there's a few million dollars set aside for Kentucky's next great point guard.

Is it going to be a Lamont Butler type of floor stabilizer?

Somebody who brings that intensity on the defensive end, one of the best on ball defenders.

I've seen it Kentucky in a hot minute that maybe gives you a boost in efficiency because

of his new found offensive success in a new system to go and get somebody that's more

score first, maybe instead of past first, do you get somebody who's all about passing

and is still an inefficient shooter?

Kentucky has the money to go get literally whatever they want.

But honestly, they're probably going to get the most well-rounded best player available

in the portal.

He's they're going to go big fish hunting as they have continued to say the other thing

here.

And this is behind a paywall.

But I do want to note it because of the fact that it's just kind of swirling around

on Twitter.

Jack Pilgrim of KSR reported that the exit meeting that Jalen Lowe had with Mark Pope

was brief, like just a couple of minutes, where it became clear, the program was ready

to move in a different direction and Lowe was fine without that outcome.

I think two things can be true here.

I think Kentucky desperately needed Jalen Lowe to fully unlock the potential that last

season's team had, crazy to already be saying last season considering there are a number

of teams that are still playing ball.

It was important to last year's team.

I don't necessarily know if he would have been the point guard that you needed or wanted

moving forward to elevate you to national title status with the inefficiency with the consistent

injuries now becoming a problem with the size, yes, the playmaking is valuable and yes,

he was so clutch in the few games that he got to play for the cats.

However, knowing that this staff, according to reports, very quickly knew they wanted to move

on to try and get something else in here.

I think it's a sign of growth.

I think it's a sign of maturity and intelligence from both Pope and Keegan Brown, the new

addition who's trying to build out the best roster he possibly can.

So I think knowing that they know, hey, we got to do a lot better, hey, we got to find

some more stability.

Find a better floor and a player like low who needs the ball in his hands to succeed.

Maybe wasn't the best player that Kentucky wants to have at that position next season.

I think again, who thinks can be true.

It is also true that he was crucial, crucial to last year's roster build up.

Take up, I should say, and not having him stunk right at to Aberdeen for carrying the

load there as he did who wind down the season.

Would you have a lot of money to pay play with?

And I guess the big question right now is if you don't get Tyron Stokes, who we will

talk about in a little bit, if you don't get Tyron Stokes, do you go after dink, Pete

who marked Pope again in New York earlier today to watch him play?

He had 12 points in the fourth quarter.

It's a kill shot of his own eight is been playing phenomenal ball right now for the West

Chester.

Next you go after somebody like him and say, look, we know you're not the best ball handler

that we could ask for.

You're one of the best shooters at your size at your position.

We need somebody like you to be at the one or the two do go after eight to be the star

in your back court.

We're just going to have to wait and see if that's the direction that Kentucky wants to

go, but it's clear that they're very interested and as Pete has said, if they want me, they

can get me.

So JLMO in the portal, wishing him the best lot of money to play with.

You could go get paid.

You could go get another big fish.

I frankly don't think the best point guard that Kentucky can get has entered the transfer

portal yet.

I want to wait to see what some of these sweet 16 and B.A. guards do before I really do

stamp.

Okay, these are the best that we can get so incredible, incredible.

I think vision and decision making to move on from low, but I do hope that he goes and

he balls out wherever he transfers.

We might have a potential commitment date for Tyron Stokes, according to reports from

Joe Tipton, you have been a little gun shy recently about Tyron Stokes, but according

to reports, maybe we'll see announcements.

Let's talk about that potential announcement.

We'll talk about the reporting.

What he could mean to Kentucky's team before we do that though, want to tell you guys

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story.

Obviously, I want to come back here to jail.

And though I want to continue to give him his flowers for a little bit, obviously fighting

through a shoulder injury once would suck, finding through it twice would be terrible,

but to try and come back and play after a third dislocation of his shoulder shows the type

of effort and heart that this kid has to want to play the game of basketball.

I love the fact that guys like Cam Williams came back.

I love the fact that we saw some effort and some fight from the kids who got taken out

to come back.

You know who I'm talking about here.

And for low to continue to sit there and say, I want to play, I want to play.

I want to find any sort of possible way to grind this out.

I think it goes a lot of character and it shows a lot of heart and it shows that there's

more to these players than just their highlights and just their splashy buckets and assists.

It's the early mornings.

It's the late night runs.

It's the healing process here for a lot of these guys that have been injured.

It's constantly showing up for their squad on and off the court.

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All right, continuing along here on today's episode of the show, thank you guys so much

for tuning in.

Subscribe if you have not already.

Goodness gracious.

It's going to be a very, very, very weird offseason, Lance DAW hanging out here with

you.

Follow me on Twitter at locked on UK, by the way.

Got a lot of stuff going on over there at locked on UK, just a constant stream of communication

about all things going on with Kentucky basketball, again, audience of one here.

I guess I, would you call this in the studio?

I don't know.

I don't know if that judgment call or not.

But we want to talk here for a little bit about a Tyron Stokes commitment data report

from Joe Tipton or actually, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold on real quick.

I want to say this one last thing about Jalen, though, because it comes from, I believe

you've his father.

This is from VOT's views on Twitter at VOT's view.

And he got a statement from his father, Marland on Jalen's decision to enter the portal.

And this is the quote, University of Kentucky and BB and welcome Jalen.

He showed his desire and willingness to play for Kentucky basketball and its fans, even

though a three shoulder separations and a shift as a parent, of course, one would

have one of their child to shut it down.

But we expect mental and physical toughness from, from our sons.

He showed what is instilled within him.

The effort was clear.

We are proud of him.

We are thankful to Kentucky basketball for the opportunity.

Kentucky fans are incredible for all of the negativity for all of the bad things, the

bad parts of this fan base to come, they're rearing their ugly head this season with the

thing said towards Malacomberino and his family to the thing said about Jalen notes to the

thing said about Jasper Johnson, you have to appreciate the fact for when things like

this happen where the fan base comes together and they rally around a player and they show

him the love and support that they deserve.

The coups out there, the morons, the people who don't understand how to function as human

beings, they'll come and attack those players personally.

We like to keep it strictly to what they're doing on the court.

And frankly, as they now make millions of dollars, I think it's fair to criticize how

they operate.

And off the court, all that stuff has to be thrown out the window to get the love that

Jalen low deserves.

I think is incredible here.

Hats off to his father, hats off to low again, or reiterate it for fifth or six time.

I really do wish him the best and I love what he brought in just a few games that he was

able to participate in.

The latest intel on Tyron Stokes, according to Joe Tipton is a little interesting because

throughout this entire process, we have guest, we have speculated, we have thrown out

ideas of when he will commit, where he will commit, how will he will commit, who he

will commit to will be organ will be Louisville will be Kansas will be Kentucky will be New

Jersey International Tech School for the blind.

And at this point, we finally have maybe possibly possibly a commitment date, according

again to Joe Tipton, a possible commitment date that has emerged is Tuesday, March 31st

at the McDonald's All-American Game in Glendale, Arizona.

I don't know if you've seen the highlights from the All-American game practices, but Stokes

clearly in my mind, one of the best players on the floor, if not the best, just as I've

continued, we've not really talked in maybe half a year about what this kid brings to

the table, skill wise, unstoppable at the rim of to have that, I pove offense, Mark

Pope wants to put out for a variety of reason, especially if you had somebody like Dink

paid on your roster as well, make him a little bit more of a spot up guy, but anyway,

Glendale, Arizona March 31st is the possible commitment date, according to reports in

speaking with sources, Tipton says, Kansas is still believed to be the leader, however,

we are still awaiting a decision from Bill Stealth on whether or not he will retire,

or coach the J-Hawks for another season that decision could impact the direction of Stokes'

choice.

The only other school Tipton is hearing in this recruitment is Kentucky.

If things fall through with Kansas, I expect UK to be the team to watch.

I don't want to sit here and try and get your hopes up, or try to sway you towards this

recruitment going into Kentucky's favor for any irrational way.

All I will say is this, it's clear Tipton is not known Jack

Squat about where he is going up until this point, because a few months ago, there were

people on on three, including him saying, hey, he's going to go to Kentucky, didn't happen.

And now we've heard for going on what four months now, four months, right?

That oh, it's going to be Kansas.

And now that we've come down the stretch these last few weeks, all of the sudden rumblings

are like, hmm, doesn't look like he knows, doesn't look like jokes himself knows.

We don't know where Tyron Stokes is going to commit.

So anybody out there that wants to tell you, he's a Kentucky Lee, he's a Kansas Lee,

he's a Merrimack Lee, he's a CNLE, he's a New Jersey International Tech for the School

for the Blindly.

It doesn't matter, nobody knows.

And as I have continued to say, and I will reiterate it again here,

until the graphic is posted by Stokes himself.

I will not sit here and tell you one way or another, he's going to be a Wildcat, he's

going to be a CNLE, a Saint Bernard, like, just wait, just wait.

Now it's awesome that we've got some sort of news.

It's awesome that we've got a report here.

But until it happens, I'm sitting waiting, wishing until the fat lady sings, it's not

over.

Kentucky's clearly got the money, they have the resources to get him reports have come

out and said he'd rather go to Kansas than Kentucky, but there's a lot holding it back

from that.

He's also a Nike athlete that has to be noted here that has to be pointed out as a Nike

athlete, possibly going to an Adidas school.

That is a factor in this.

That is a serious factor in this because there are loopholes that he has to jump through.

And oh, by the way, we don't know if Bill Self is going to be coaching in Lawrence next

year.

There's a lot up in the air.

For the next 72 hours, if you hear something come out, that is not coming from Stokes himself.

Just let it ride.

Now again, I'm not trying to give you any sort of irrational hope here.

I just let's call it what it is.

We have no freaking clue what's going on.

There is a player in the transfer portal right now that I don't think Kentucky's reached

out to at least not publicly, but it's the San Diego State pipeline.

And boy, I would love to see this kid in blue and white.

I'm literally going to spend the next seven minutes or so telling you about a kid that

Kentucky's not even reached out to.

I'm just so excited about that.

I feel like he needs the he deserves the attention.

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All right, wrapping up today's episode, Lance doll and the raccoon hanging out here with

you really appreciate you tuning in again, subscribe.

If you have not already appreciate everyone who has because my goodness, because everybody

go crazy for a little off season, but chatter, whatever you want to call it.

And guys, there's a guy in the transfer portal right now that I absolutely love.

And normally the boy here is big on advanced analytics.

If the advanced analytics don't say that the player is good, he's a no actually more than

likely tomorrow, we're going to talk about a player that a lot of you guys really like

in the portal that I think is a clear no go.

And if Kentucky takes them, then I'll change my tune because I'm a rationally biased

and I'll spend the narrative anyway, I want anyway.

Miles bird out of San Diego state is a baller.

I think this kid is a joy to watch 10.4 points per game, 2.6 is this per game, 4.7 boards

per game at six foot, 5182 transferring out of San Diego state.

Now he's listed as a sophomore.

So be heading into his junior year, however, he's already played four seasons of ball

with the Aztecs.

You have the experience, you have the stats.

And when you watch this kid in his highlights, forget the efficiency for a second.

It is peyotic, it is all over the place, helter, sculptor, some crazy circus shots he

hits consistently.

And the efficiency is not going to wow you, right, 40.5% from the floor, 30.7% from

three, shoots almost 80% from the charity stripe.

So he's got a solid stroke.

It's just he plays, though off balance and out of control, it is really, really fun

to watch, especially when the ball goes in.

I wrote down on my notes a bit of reckless abandoned and I underlined reckless because

initially I was like, hey, he kind of plays like he's on some sort of drug or narcotic.

But now that I've watched him a little bit more, he's constantly playing like he's on

something.

And I really do like that, especially given what he is as a defender, because the cool

thing about Miles Bird at small Ford or shooting guard, if you want to put him there,

the cool thing about miles is that he's not a good offensive player.

He's still a plus on that into the floor, according to offensive block box plus minus

over on sports reference, his defense.

According to Evan Mia, his Bayesian performance rating is an A plus, it's in the 99th percent

time.

He is one of the best defenders on the planet right now.

He is in the 99th percentile and steals.

He's in the 77th percentile and fouls, so he doesn't foul you, but he picks your pocket.

He's in the 91st percentile for blocks.

This is an A plus plus defender, who according to Evan Mia is a B offensively.

He's still in the 87th percentile of offensive players just based on their Bayesian performance

rating.

So he's still okay on offense, and he's the best defender in the portal.

To me, knowing how Kentucky has struggled defending the ball this season, this feels like

a clear take to me, a gliding athlete, somebody with explosiveness, and who is fun, who is

creative, who is all over the place, and brings you insane defensive value, to me, that's

what Kentucky needs.

And we talk about possession control, we talk about variance control.

We talk about doing the little things to make sure you have the ball more often and longer

than your opponent.

99th percentile and steals 91st in blocks, 85th in free throws, like he's doing the little

things here to give your team more opportunities to score.

And something that's been really interesting recently in some case, some reports have been

coming out about this, like some different essays and different things like that, about

how college basketball is kind of shifting.

And I think Todd Golden has talked about this as much as I hate him.

I think he's right about this recently where he talks about how we're sort of shifting

away from the NBA model, which is super, super interesting to have that conversation

to where college, oh, the cliche is, oh, it's going to take it about 10 years to catch

up to the NBA.

Well, now technically, college is sort of caught up to that 2016, 17, 18 style ball where

Steph Curry was taking off in the five out offense became a thing.

And there was just a crazy explosion of spacing in the NBA, yeah, college is sort of picking

that up now, but they're also now sort of dropping it.

And Todd Golden has talked about this a lot recently where now you're starting to see

the team is you're starting to see teams value the rim, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot more

and not just scoring at the rim, but rebounding, controlling both sides of the ball, being

really uber physical and aggressive when it comes to attacking it, when it comes to

defending it, when it comes to rebounding off of it and getting to the foul line, I think

is important.

There are some ways to dispel that opinion, statistically speaking, however, I think

free throw rate is a huge thing would be really nice to see Kentucky be dominant on the

boards, efficient at the rim and get to the foul line next season, but the ways that

you get the ball more often on the defensive side, what do you do?

You force miss shots and you steal the ball away from your opponent.

It sounds like here in Miles birdie got a player that does that just about better than

anybody you could possibly add to this roster right now.

Now again, we'll see what happens after the sweet 16 elite eight final four title games

over.

We'll see who enters the portal.

We'll see who Kentucky wants to go after, but for my money, given how athletic he is

and just how fun he is despite his inefficiency on the offensive end, I would take a guy like

this.

He's also want to point this out here, 81% title and playmaking.

He's not he's not about this is this would be a solid really, really solid role player for

Kentucky that I think could get who could stick his nose in and really, really play who

his best to the best of his abilities within a Mark Pope system.

In my opinion, something that Pope does better than just about anybody in the country outside

of maybe a John Shire or a Tommy Lloyd is consistently create solid spot up looks, especially

when you have at least two shooters on the floor for guys who are maybe negatives on the

offensive end.

And I think the greatest example of that is actually your boy and mine, Lamont Butler

from San Diego State last year.

We don't fully appreciate what the hell Kentucky did with Lamont Butler last season.

There are two seasons ago, I guess I should say at this point, you guys know that up until

last up until the 2024 25 season, he was a career career, like 31% 3 point shooter if that

and the shot was off and he was terrible and he could not find a way to be consistent

from beyond the arc, 39.1% and against tier A competition against the best competition

that Kentucky face last year, they faced a lot of really good teams, 45% from three Lamont

Butler knocked down 22 threes against against 17 quality opponents.

That was Mark Pope in the offense.

Get somebody like Miles Burden and you'll see that three point shooting percentage go from

30 to 34.

If it's 33 or more, you've got you've struck gold.

You have one of the best players in the country because he gives you a boost on offense

and then also nobody scoring on it.

Miles Burden I think would be a phenomenal, I mean phenomenal pickup.

If you just want the raw stats, by the way, average is two steals and 1.2 blocks per game.

That is 3.2 stocks and he is only playing 28 minutes.

I say only, but still he could be playing a lot more than that would love to see what

he did could do in blue and white if Kentucky wants to go after him.

I think he's a great player.

I thought he was worth mentioning today.

All right.

That's going to do it for today's episode of the show.

Thank you guys so much for tuning in.

Subscribe.

If you have not already, you can follow the show over on Twitter at locked on the UK, follow

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Hope you guys have a great rest of your day and God bless.

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