The Kentucky Wildcats added their point guard for next season this morning as Pittsburgh transfer Jaland Lowe committed to Mark Pope and the Cats.
A solid playmaker that earned All-ACC third team honors this season for the Panthers, his play caught the eye of two of the Cats most hated rivals head coaches.
Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils and Pat Kelsey of the Louisville Cardinals had to square off against Lowe in ACC play this season, and both had high praise for the new UK commit.
“Lowe is a really good player,” Scheyer told George Michalowski of Pittsburgh Sports Now. “He can score in a variety of ways, he can shoot from three, he can attack the basket, he can create, he plays pretty much the whole game. So, you have to — he’s not a guy that shies away after missing a couple. He’s going to continue to shoot, no matter what’s happening. He has great next-play mentality in that regard. So, you have to continually stay in a stance against him and you have to make sure you make it as hard as possible. He’s going to score. You just don’t want him to get any easy ones whenever possible.”
Kelsey had a similar statement regarding Lowe after the Cards faced off with him.
“No. 15 (Lowe) is a dynamic guard. He puts fouls on you. He’s as fast and quick twitch as any guard we’re going to play against. He’s got this uncanny knack when he gets to the rim. He’s got this ability, like, at the last second, to go whoop and fire that thing for threes,” Kelsey said after the win over the Panthers. “We call it matrix, right? So, you’ve seen the movie The Matrix, you know, like when the bullets are flying over the guy’s head, and they watch it. Well, [Lowe] throws these passes that, if you ball watch, he’s going to find that dude. They got too many open looks off of that. We actually got lucky a couple of times that they missed some of those open looks. But we knew it was going to come to a one-on-one challenge because [Lowe is] a terrific one-on-one player. He wants to go left, and you try everything in your power to keep him from going left, and he gets to his left somehow, some way.”
If you had any reserves about Lowe hopefully these comments help clear those up. In a more efficient offense, he has all the tools to make some for the Cats this season.
