Kentucky basketball adds another high school recruit to next season’s team

Kentucky basketball has added another high school recruit to its 2025-26 roster.

On Tuesday night, Mark Pope and the Wildcats got a commitment from Braydon Hawthorne, a high school senior who was previously signed to play college basketball at West Virginia.

Hawthorne, who took a recruiting visit to UK in April, is a 6-foot-8 small forward from West Virginia. Hawthorne is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as a four-star recruit and as the No. 101 overall prospect in the 2025 high school recruiting class.

He was one of the biggest risers in the 247Sports high school recruiting rankings this season.

Hawthorne made his new college choice in a live-streamed announcement with 247Sports on YouTube. He picked UK from a group of five finalists that included Duke, Kentucky, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and West Virginia in full.

After committing to Kentucky on Tuesday night, Hawthorne explained that Pope and the UK coaching staff developed a strong relationship with him. Hawthorne specifically singled out Kentucky assistant coach Jason Hart for his role in the recruiting process.

Hawthorne had signed to play at West Virginia, but those plans changed when former Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries left to become the head coach at Indiana.

As you might recall, DeVries and the Hoosiers won a recruiting battle this offseason against Kentucky for highly touted transfer portal guard Lamar Wilkerson, a former standout at Sam Houston who committed to IU over UK.

After DeVries left his post at West Virginia, Hawthorne decommitted from the Mountaineers and reopened his recruitment.

Hawthorne — who played his prep basketball at Huntington Prep and boasts a 7-foot-3 wingspan — is now the 14th scholarship player in place for Pope’s second Kentucky team next season. He’s also the 10th addition of the offseason for the UK program.

Class of 2025 college basketball recruit Braydon Hawthorne poses for a photo in a Kentucky jersey while taking a recruiting visit to UK in April 2025.

Braydon Hawthorne joins 2025-26 UK basketball team

Kentucky now has 14 players in place for the 2025-26 team.

This group includes four projected returnees from last season’s UK team. Those players are freshmen guard Collin Chandler, freshman forward Trent Noah, sophomore center Brandon Garrison and junior guard Otega Oweh.

Oweh declared for the 2025 NBA draft and is going through the draft process. This included participating in the NBA Combine and conducting interviews and workouts with NBA teams. College players like Oweh have until 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 28 to pull out of the draft and retain their NCAA eligibility.

UK lost two scholarship players with remaining eligibility to the transfer portal from the 2024-25 roster, guards Kerr Kriisa (Cincinnati) and Travis Perry (Ole Miss).

Along with Kentucky’s four expected returnees, UK has also brought in six experienced college players via the transfer portal. Those players are junior guard Denzel Aberdeen (Florida), sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama), sophomore guard Jaland Lowe (Pittsburgh), sophomore center Reece Potter (Miami), freshman big man Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State) and freshman wing Kam Williams (Tulane).

Additionally, UK will now be bringing in four first-year players next season. Those players are Hawthorne, 6-foot-11 Croatian big man Andrija Jelavic, guard Jasper Johnson and in-state center Malachi Moreno. Hawthorne, Johnson and Moreno are all arriving via the traditional high school recruiting pathway, while Jelavic has previous professional playing experience in Europe.

Johnson is a left-handed guard and the No. 21 national recruit in the 2025 class, according to the 247Sports Composite. Moreno was a McDonald’s All-American and Sweet 16 state champion this year.

Former high school recruit and UK signee Acaden Lewis, a guard, decommitted from Kentucky this spring and will instead be playing next season at Villanova.

During his first offseason press conference on May 13 — which came before Hawthorne committed to UK — Pope touched on the subject of potentially adding to next season’s Kentucky roster.

“I love our roster right now,” Pope told media members. “We’ll see, we could have a little bit of movement here, but I think we’re in a pretty good spot… We’ll see.”

As it turned out, Hawthorne was part of the roster movement that Pope alluded to.

What will Braydon Hawthorne’s role look like at Kentucky?

Hawthorne will be a developmental piece for UK’s future.

As Kentucky’s roster is currently constructed, there’s only a narrow path to playing time for Hawthorne. The UK frontcourt will be headlined by returnee Garrison and new additions Dioubate, Jelavic, Moreno and Quaintance. Williams, the Tulane transfer, also figures to have a prominent role following an impact freshman season with the Green Wave.

This was further made apparent by some of Hawthorne’s comments after he committed to Kentucky.

“If I come in and do what I’ve got to do, then I will have an opportunity to play,” Hawthorne told 247Sports about the UK coaching staff’s vision for him. “If not, I am going to put my head down and keep working and get ready for the next year and do what I can to support my team.”

According to 247Sports, the addition of Hawthorne moves Kentucky to the edge of having a top-10 high school recruiting class for 2025. Both Johnson and Moreno are five-star prospects, and Hawthorne now gives Pope’s program a four-star recruit. Jelavic, the international arrival, isn’t ranked by 247Sports.

247Sports has Kentucky ranked as having the 11th-best incoming group of freshmen in the nation. The top-10 high school recruiting classes for 2025, per 247Sports, belong to Houston, Arizona, Duke, UConn, Notre Dame, Arkansas, SMU, North Carolina, BYU and Syracuse.

No uncommitted class of 2025 college basketball prospects currently hold a UK scholarship offer.

Of the schools that 247Sports has ranked among the top-15 high school recruiting classes for 2025, only Kentucky also features on that outlet’s list of the top-10 incoming transfer portal classes.

247Sports ranks Kentucky as having the fourth-best incoming class of transfers in the country for next season, behind only St. John’s, Michigan and Louisville.

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