Mark Story: Jaland Lowe is not daunted by the ghosts of Kentucky's 'elite point guards past'

Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader on Oct 8, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — So you think there is pressure in your job? In 2025-26, Jaland Lowe will step into Kentucky’s long-running line of point guard excellence — and attempt to uphold an exacting standard.

When UK began to recruit the former Pittsburgh Panthers standout out of the transfer portal, “probably the first thought that ran through my head (was) of all the great guards that have been here,” Lowe said Monday at UK’s annual men’s basketball media day at the Joe Craft Center.

Over just the past 16 seasons, the line of UK point guard excellence runs from John Wall through Brandon Knight, Andrew Harrison, Tyler Ulis, DeAaron Fox, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and all the way to last season’s Kentucky men’s basketball folk hero, Lamont Butler.

That is a five-time NBA All-Star (Wall); a player who hit two game-winning shots in one NCAA Tournament (Knight); the floor general of back-to-back Final Four teams (Harrison); an SEC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year (Ulis); the 2022-23 NBA Clutch Player of the Year (Fox); and the reigning NBA MVP and NBA champion (SGA).

While less acclaimed than many of his celebrated predecessors, Butler dropped 33 points on intrastate rival Louisville last season in a Wildcats victory; willed UK to its first NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 trip since 2019 while playing through multiple injuries; and became an important symbol of how playing in Kentucky coach Mark Pope’s system can improve a player’s offensive efficiency.

The 6-foot-1, 170-pound Lowe, a product of Missouri City, Texas, is too young to remember Wall from his UK days. But he does recall watching Ulis and Gilgeous-Alexander as well as fellow Texans Harrison (Richmond, Texas) and Fox (Katy) run point for Kentucky.

“Those guys specifically, are, like, the main ones that got me into Kentucky basketball,” Lowe said.

When it became apparent that Pope was seeking to add Lowe to the UK roster last spring, focus quickly attached to the guard’s shooting percentages from last season.

As the most talented player on a limited Pitt roster, Lowe was a high-volume shooter (442 shot attempts) who shot 37.6% on field-goal tries and a chilly 26.6% on 3-point attempts.

In assessing Lowe, Pope said the UK brain trust applied a “functional shot-quality metric” that evaluated the quality of shots Lowe took in 2024-25 in comparison to what the “average college basketball player” would take.

“One of the interesting things about Jaland was, for whatever reason, last year, he was in the 95th, 93rd percentile (among) players in the country taking shots (but) in the bottom 20% of ‘shot quality’ numbers,” Pope said.

Counterintuitively, Pope said the Kentucky staff is attracted to otherwise talented players whose low shooting percentages seem to stem from shot selection.

“We love when we see things like that, because those are things that (fixing) it doesn’t depend on increased skill,” Pope said. “It doesn’t depend on hours and hours in the gym. It just relies on a new understanding, a new style of play, maybe a new environment, a new way for ‘J Lo’ to approach the game.”

Lowe expressed enthusiasm for playing in a different manner than he had to do last season for Pitt.

“I don’t want to be out there taking a lot of hard shots. That’s not who I am,” Lowe said. “I don’t want to have to carry such a heavy load of having to shoot hard shots. I’d love to shoot a lot of easy ones and then help my teammates out at (doing) the same.”

It was not lost on Lowe that Butler came into Pope’s offensive system after being a defense-first guard for San Diego State for four seasons and raised his field-goal percentage by 7.7% (42.1 to 49.) and his 3-point percentage by 8.9% (30.2 to 39.1) year-to-year while averaging a career-high 11.4 points a game.

“That was a huge pitch,” Lowe said. “And that’s a huge reason why I chose here.”

Pope said there is much about Lowe’s game — finishing ability, fearless nature, capacity to get wherever he wants on the court with the ball whenever he wants to be there — that should “translate well to him being a more efficient player.”

Overall, Pope said of Lowe “We have big-time expectations.”

Along with greater offensive efficiency, Lowe sees his primary role as Kentucky point guard as becoming a player his new teammates are willing to follow.

“His leadership is amazing,” incoming Kentucky guard and 2025 Florida Gators NCAA champion Denzel Aberdeen said. “(Lowe) pushes me each and every day in practice to get me to my best. So I’m very thankful for him.”

As for the pressure that may come from seeking to live up to the legacy left by the ghosts of Kentucky’s “elite point guards past,” Lowe plans to embrace it.

“I’m more than glad to be here to take on this pressure to try and be a great point guard, like the past point guards have been,” he said.

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