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JUST IN: Kentucky Basketball Pulls Off Jaw-Dropping Coup, Snags ‘Juggernaut’ Mid-Major Sensation
This isn’t the Kentucky basketball of John Calipari. Following Calipari’s departure to Arkansas in April, Mark Pope, the new coach, has been assembling the 2024–25 team on his own schedule.
This week, he was able to secure the commitment of 6-foot-7 Fairleigh Dickinson shooter Ansley Almonor, an NCAA transfer. Before Pope and his staff arrived, Almonor looked set to transfer to upstate New York’s Siena, a mid-major school in the Metro Atlantic Athletic league—the only significant Power 5 league team to pursue Almonor. Almonor also had Pepperdine and Iona on his list.
He is clearly not a player Calipari would have looked to sign.
And perhaps that’s a good thing because the statistics indicate that, even if Almonor isn’t expected to be a star in the NBA, he could still be valuable to the UK. He is a proficient NCAA shooter. Almonor played 32 games for Fairleigh Dickinson last season before entering his senior year.
He made 39.4% of his three-pointers and averaged 16.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.7 assists. He also didn’t hold back when shooting: He attempted 7.4 3-pointers overall per game, and his 2.91 attempts per game were 36th in the country.
Ansley Almonor: A “Juggernaut” in the Gun Game Almonor is projected to be a backup forward at UK behind 6-foot-11 shooter Andrew Carr, but he could have played a major role had he transferred to another mid-major.
He will play, but not for as many minutes as he did in the previous campaign (32.0 minutes per game). Although it makes sense that Almonor desired to travel to more favorable surroundings, he made history at Fairleigh Dickinson in the NCAA tournament a year ago.
That was the first-round upset of Purdue by the 16th-seeded Knights, who became only the second No. 16 to defeat a top seed.
Almonor wasn’t a major player in that game, but the previous season he was the team’s center of attention. Almonor’s high school coach, Peter Wehye of Our Saviour Lutheran, said of him on the recruiting website ZagsBlog: “He’s a juggernaut of a shooter.”
He intends to extend the floor. I am aware that they will be really risky [with Almonor and Kobe Brea]. When you discuss Ansley, you’re discussing the addition of a proficient shooter to the power forward position.
The 11-man roster for Kentucky basketball With the pledge, Kentucky’s basketball team now has 11 players on the roster, which is where most college basketball coaches finish.
Pope, though, has stated that he plans to employ all 13 scholarships and that he is still looking to add a high scorer to strengthen this defensive-minded team. Jaxson Robinson, who played for Pope at BYU and averaged 14.2 points last season—his fourth college season at three separate institutions (he began his career at Texas A&M and then Arkansas—has been the main target.
Wooga Poplar, a transfer from Miami, and Chaz Lanier, a scorer from North Florida, are also on the roster. According to On3 Sports, Lanier has actually surpassed Robinson on the Kentucky wish list, and the NBA and Tennessee are UK’s two main rivals. Lanier is taking part in this week’s NBA combine along with Robinson and Poplar, and he may choose to stay on the draft.
“Speaking of Kentucky, sources close to the recruitment tell me that the Wildcats have gone all in on Lanier,” On3’s Jamie Shaw stated. According to some, he is the best choice still available to them.
According to sources, the staff believes Lanier is the missing component of the lineup they have assembled and appreciates his ability to score.
