'The hype is as real as it gets' with Jaland Lowe at Kentucky

Mark Pope already singled out Pittsburgh transfer Jaland Lowe as a ‘special’ talent for Kentucky, a player expected to take a ‘massive jump’ in blue and white this season. It doesn’t take 20/20 vision to see the signs, the 6-2 junior earning All-ACC honors a year ago after averaging 16.8 points, 5.5 assists, 4.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals per contest for the Panthers. The team struggled in a bad conference at 17-15 overall and 8-12 in league play, but the counting stats were excellent for the former four-star recruit.

The issue? He shot an abysmal 37.6 percent from the field and 26.6 percent from three while turning the ball over 3.0 times per game. If this was going to work in Lexington, the dynamic guard had to clean up the efficiency while maintaining that all-conference production. Early returns were extremely positive.

“He’s an elite-level playmaker on ball screens — I mean, he can fling the ball everywhere on the court, make every pass,” Pope said during the eight-week summer session. “He was our leading three-point field goal percentage shooter in five-on-five competition this summer — just right under 42 percent. We’re incredibly excited about what we believe he’s going to do in terms of efficiency this summer.”

Consider those boxes checked, along with a few others — including leadership, maybe his best trait up to this point.

“Sometimes you gotta be a truth teller. Sometimes you gotta hold people accountable, and for those of us that are born pleasers, sometimes that can be really challenging. He’s not,” Pope continued. “There’s no fear in him to be like, ‘Nah, this is how it is.’ If you like it or don’t like it, it doesn’t matter. It’s just the truth.”

The evaluation isn’t so easy for Pope’s assistants with deep Texas ties, Alvin Brooks III and Mikhail McLean. You see, Lowe’s father, Marland Lowe, is a grassroots basketball staple in the greater Houston area, coaching and training over a hundred high-major talents across three decades. He actually coached McLean at the AAU level, if that tells you anything, while Brooks III is a longtime friend with endless connections in the Lone Star State.

They’ve known Lowe since he was in diapers, so they almost view him as a nephew more than just a player they’re coaching on the surface. And with family comes tough love, so it’s not just sunshine and rainbows when it comes to talking about his game.

“Me and Coach (Alvin) Brooks are probably as critical of Jaland Lowe as we can because, obviously, we’ve known the kid since he was like four years old,” McLean told KSR. “I played for Jaland Lowe’s dad in AAU, right? So I’ve literally known Lowe since he was three years old, walking around the gym.”

With that comes a longer runway to work with when it comes to evaluation, watching him grow up as a kid into a young adult, then a grown man. On the court, they’ve seen him learn to dribble and shoot a basketball for the first time and develop into a legitimate pro talent.

That part has been cool as this lifelong relationship has presented the opportunity to coach him for a year or two before he takes on the NBA. And they’re going to enjoy it as long as they can, because the junior guard is pretty darn good.

The whispers you heard about him over the summer and into the fall are accurate — as tough as they want to be on him.

“I mean, the hype is as real as it gets,” McLean said. “He’s a playmaker. He can score at will, but he’s taking a lot of pride in becoming an elite playmaker, in taking — the shot quality, taking the best shots available. He’s taken a big step as a defender.”

Maybe the most impressive part is Lowe’s ability to take feedback from the draft process this past cycle and truly learn from it. For some, it goes in one ear and out the other, upperclassmen plateauing as really good college players, not talents with real NBA upside.

The Missouri City, TX native has gotten better. Much, much better.

“That’s some of the feedback that he got, he needed to improve as an on-ball defender in ball screens,” McLean added. “I mean, he won our one-on-one defensive drill a few days ago, so he’s grown as a defender and his voice as a leader is elite. We’re really proud to have him on our team and leading our guys.”

Pope may be the king of hyperbole, but not in this case. Kentucky got a good one in Jaland Lowe.