Kentucky lands commitment from West Virginia point guard Kerr Kriisa

It’s another Mark Pope BOOM on Wednesday afternoon as the Wildcats have just landed a pledge from veteran point guard Kerr Kriisa, who spent time at both Arizona and then West Virginia.

ESPN’s Jonathan Givony had the report, tweeting out that Kriisa had pledged to Kentucky while also noting the long awaiting union of he and Mark Pope:

“NEWS: West Virginia transfer Kerr Kriisa has committed to Kentucky, he told ESPN. Head coach Mark Pope pursued Kriisa on two separate occasions out of high school and upon transferring out of Arizona, finally securing his commitment the third time around.”

Kriisa averaged 11 points and 4.7 assists per game for a Mountaineer team that experienced a year of remarkable turbulence following Bob Huggins’ resignation and a complete roster overhaul just months before the season.

He’s always been a fiery and unique player at the college level since committing to Arizona, coming over from his home in Estonia to suit up for the West Coast Wildcats. Now, he’ll get a chance to represent the ones in blue and white.

Kerr Kriisa has really made his name as two things at the college level: solid point guard play and some flamethrower 3-point shooting. Now, especially early on in his career, the 3-point shots were a little too frequent for how often they fell, as he fired off more than seven per game in 2021-22 but hardly made a third of them (33.6%).

However, in both 2022 and 2023, while somewhat inefficient, Kriisa was still the starting point guard and nearly averaged double figures for a pair of Arizona teams that earned a 1-seed (’22) and 2-seed (’23) in the NCAA Tournament. But he opted to transfer following an NCAA Tournament loss to 15-seed Princeton in ’23 where Kriisa shot 1-7 from the field, all from 3, and turned the ball over four times.

At West Virginia, the situation around him was completely dysfunctional in the aftermath of the Huggins resignation (plus the legal fallout from that whole charade). So it’s hard to judge the team performance as any indictment on Kriisa, but he actually played very well.

On the worst team he’d ever played on, Kriisa provided his best performance, averaging a career-high 11 points to go along with strong assist numbers. But the real development in Morgantown came from beyond the arc, where Kriisa still fired away his six attempts per game, but in 2024, he made 42.4% of those. Volume stayed the same and percentage went way up, which is what you love to see out of older guys.

Sure, perhaps Kriisa doesn’t come to Kentucky and hit quite that mark, but it’s safe to assume he’ll be a very dependable 3-point shooter and a nice counter at the point guard spot alongside defensive ace Lamont Butler, who also recently committed to the Wildcats.

UK fans can expect him to fill a very similar role to Dallin Hall under Pope, the BYU point guard who ran the show and launched 3s in 2023-24.