KSR Today: Collin Chandler, a Bat Cats win, and the wild transfer portal
Good morning, folks! If you thought the last two days were newsy, just wait until Mark Pope really starts to build out his first roster in Lexington.
Pope got the ball rolling on Tuesday morning with a nice pickup from (technically) the high school ranks. Class of 2022 four-star guard Collin Chandler announced that he has flipped his commitment from BYU to Kentucky. Chandler was a talented prospect prior to committing to BYU and was the Cougars’ highest-ranked commit in program history. However, a two-year mission kept him off the court and away from basketball.
The timing worked out perfectly for Kentucky though, as Pope will now bring Chandler to the Bluegrass along with him. KSR’s Brandon Ramsey has a Film Room breakdown of Chandler’s game that you can find here. Below is just a part of Ramsey’s overall evaluation of Chandler:
“Chandler is a long, athletic guard with good positional size. He is a bit thin and will benefit from a college strength and conditioning program, especially after a two-year hiatus from regular training, but the frame is there to fit nicely in the Southeastern Conference. There is no denying his overall shooting ability. He will be a high-percentage maker in catch-and-shoot opportunities or with the pull-up jump shot.”
If we include four-star in-state point guard Travis Perry (four-star wing Billy Richmond unsurprisingly decommitted from Kentucky on Tuesday, making Perry the lone John Calipari holdover from the 2024 recruiting class), that puts Pope’s roster at just two players for the 2024-25 season, but new targets are surfacing by the hour.
In fact, we have a running list over at KSBoard of all the transfer portal targets that Kentucky has been confirmed to be in contact with. It’s growing rapidly with a dozen names already mentioned. Expect another dozen to emerge in the coming days. It won’t be long before Pope begins to stack some commitments. We all need to keep in mind he was only officially introduced as head coach less than 72 hours ago.
Bat Cats score 17 runs against Dirty Birds
Fueled by six RBIs from Ryan Waldschmidt and three more from Louisville native Ryan Nicholson, the Kentucky baseball team poured in 17 runs on the Louisville Cardinals last night, coming away with the 17-13 victory in a game that lasted four hours.
KSR’s Daniel Hager has a full recap of the win here.
No. 3 Kentucky is now 31-5 on the season with an excellent 14-1 mark in the SEC. Nick Mingiones’s Bat Cats have won 19 of its last 21 games.
Up next is a massive home series against the No. 4 Tennessee Volunteers. Kentucky is the hottest team in college baseball, but the Vols will present the biggest challenge of the season thus far. If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet to hang out at Kentucky Proud Park this weekend, I would suggest doing that sooner rather than later — the stadium is filling up quickly.
Top available transfer visiting UK
No, not for basketball. Mark Stoops and Kentucky football are also working the seemingly never-ending transfer portal. A name to know? Oregon State sophomore running back Damien Martinez.
The 5-foot-10 tailback finished third in the Pac-12 in rushing a season ago with 1,185 yards rushing and nine touchdowns, propelling the Beavers to an 8-4 regular season. He’s considered the 14th-best transfer prospect of the offseason and is the top available transfer, according to On3. A coaching change at Oregon State led to him searching for a new home. Could that home be in Lexington?
According to On3’s Hayes Fawcett, Martinez has scheduled visits to five schools for this month.
- Arizona: April 17-18
- Mississippi State: April 19-20
- Tennessee: April 21-22
- Kentucky: April 23-24
- Miami: April 25-27
As for another football note: transfer wide receiver Raymond Cottrell, who came to Kentucky in December after redshirting his freshman season at Texas A&M, is once again in the portal. The former four-star recruit announced his transfer from the Aggies in November, committed to UK a month later, then backed off that decision shortly after spring practice wrapped up.
UK Softball heads to Bowling Green
Coming off a significant SEC series win over a Top 10 Georgia team over the weekend, Kentucky softball will look to keep the momentum rolling on the road later tonight. The Wildcats head down to Bowling Green for a midweek showdown against Western Kentucky.
First pitch is set for 7:00 p.m. EST and will be available on ESPN+.
Rachel Lawson’s group is now 26-15 on the season with a 5-10 mark in the SEC. However, Kentucky has won two of its last three SEC series — both victories coming against ranked opponents. A win over WKU tonight would set up the Wildcats nicely for an important SEC road series this weekend against the Auburn Tigers.
Kenny Brooks adds another staffer
Kentucky women’s basketball’s new head coach Kenny Brooks is about halfway done putting together both his roster and coaching staff for the upcoming 2024-25 season. On Tuesday, he added another piece to his staff in Tim Clark, who will serve as Brooks’ special assistant and chief of staff.
Clark has been a member of Brooks’ staff in some capacity for 19 seasons, including 11 at James Madison and the previous eight at Virginia Tech. He spent the last two seasons as Brooks’ senior director and chief of staff for the Hokies.
“He’s been with me — I’ll say his age, he’s 37 — he’s been with me for almost 20 years of his life,” Brooks said during his debut appearance Monday night on the Kenny Brooks Show. “He was my manager when he was at James Madison. I hired him into a similar role at James Madison, he came with me to Virginia Tech, he’s been my guy at Virginia Tech and he followed me here to Kentucky. He knows me as well as my wife knows me.“
Along with Clark, Brooks has also hired associate head coach Lindsey Hicks and assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Radvile Autukaite — both of whom came over from Virginia Tech, as well.
If you’re interested in what the current roster looks like, KSR’s Katie Hutchison broke it all down here.
Discuss This Article
Comments have moved.
Join the conversation and talk about this article and all things Kentucky Sports in the new KSR Message Board.
KSBoard