College sports fans continue to debate whether the transfer portal was a good thing for the teams that they love to follow, but it's clear how one of the newest Kentucky Wildcats feels about the topic.
For Jaland Lowe, who transferred from Pittsburgh to UK this spring and appears to be the heir apparent to Lamont Butler at point guard, it was an opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream that once looked out of reach.
"Oh, wow. A lot of cameras, man," Lowe said with a huge grin Monday as he was introduced to the local media in Lexington with close to a dozen reporters circled tightly around him.
"Pretty surreal, coming to a dream school."
Lowe was a good prospect coming out of Missouri City, Texas, in the Class of 2023, but some of the nation's elite programs had questions about the wiry, 6-foot, 160-pound lefty point guard. He was rated No. 26 at his position and No. 110 overall in his class, which led to him signing with Pitt.
Two years later, after growing almost 3 inches, adding some needed muscle, and developing into an All-ACC player with the Panthers, some of those top programs took another look.
When Lowe decided to enter the transfer portal, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope quickly targeted him as the guy he wanted at arguably the most important position on the floor.
"As a kid, watching basketball growing up, you had Duke and Kentucky, and Kansas, and I always saw blue growing up," Lowe said. "I was like, I gotta go to a blue-blood school. Oh yeah, this is what I'm gonna do.
"Then it never came at first. Disappointed, but where I'm at now, it's just full circle. Me and my pops, we talk about that. I have a list at the top of my bed of eight schools I wanted to get offered from. I got absolutely none. But Kentucky was one. I guess I can go back and cross it off now."
Lowe says he's excited to follow in the footsteps of fellow Texas guards like DeAaron Fox, Andrew Harrison, and Aaron Harrison, who all excelled at Kentucky.
He averaged 16.8 points and 5.5 assists per game as a sophomore for a Pitt squad that struggled in the ACC. On 10 occasions, he scored more than 20 points, including a season-high 28-point effort to beat an Ohio State team that defeated Kentucky handily about three weeks later.
Now, surrounded by a deep and talented roster of players at UK, he hopes to refine his efficiency and become a bigger playmaker for those around him.
"A lot of people got it mixed up, that Jaland Lowe just wants to shoot the ball and jack stuff up," he said. "No. I love passing the ball. I've always told people that I get more joy from an assist than scoring a basket. My whole life, I've been a point guard. That's what I am. I know how to score the ball at a high level, still, so people don't get that twisted, but I love passing the ball, and that's always been natural for me.
"We've got a whole bunch of guys who can shoot the ball... Just, naturally, having other gifted guys, you can sit back sometimes and just say, "Here" (motioning a pass)."
That's what Pope saw when he began scouting Lowe and speaking with him on the phone.
"It's actually very rare that you run into a guy that's been as pronounced a talent as he has that he's dying to play with more talent around him, that wants to be a guy that steps into a program where he wants to stir the drink," the UK boss said. "He wants to make guys better. He wants to elevate guys and wants to be around guys that have a ton of gravity on the court. He's hungry to do that."
Lowe loves his new teammates' work ethic and passion for the game.
"I found out that a couple of them were a lot more gym rats than I thought, for sure," Lowe said. "And I like that because I'm a gym rat myself."
The season can't get here soon enough, he says, adding that he still can't quite wrap his mind around playing for Big Blue.
"Overall, it's been everything I always wanted, and more."
