Freshman forward Braydon Hawthorne put up a shot during a recent UK practice. (Chet White\/UK Athletics)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to fly under the radar as a University of Kentucky basketball signee, but one player who has managed to do that thus far is Braydon Hawthorne<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The 6-foot-9 freshman forward was the final addition to Mark Pope<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s second team at UK, signing with the Wildcats after originally committing to West Virginia.<\/p>\n A late coaching change for the Mountaineers opened the door for Hawthorne to get a second look from his \u201cdream school.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a crazy moment for me,\u201d Hawthorne said Thursday during a Q&A session at the Craft Center. \u201c\u2026 Being here now, it means everything.\u201d<\/p>\n When he announced his commitment to the Cats, Hawthorne shared a photo on social media from when his father took him and his brother to a UK father\/son camp. That family time in Lexington made a big impression on him.<\/p>\n \u201cThat experience just set it over the top for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Full-circle with a childhood hero<\/p>\n One of the players he got to meet during the camp was eventual UK All-American and NBA star Willie Cauley-Stein<\/a><\/strong>. Hawthorne has grown quite a bit since that original meeting and recently got to scrimmage against the former Cat, who was in town to play for \u201cLa Familia\u201d in the TBT event.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to talk to him a little bit,\u201d Hawthorne said. \u201cIt was a cool experience, talking about then and now.\u201d<\/p>\n Hawthorne was rated the No. 64 prospect in the Class of 2025, coming off a senior year which saw him average 23 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists at Huntington Prep in West Virginia.<\/p>\n He joins Malachi Moreno<\/a><\/strong> and Jasper Johnson<\/a><\/strong> as the Cats\u2019 incoming freshmen this season. While he has not drawn as much attention as his classmates who just took part in USA Basketball\u2019s U-19 camp, but fans started paying a bit more attention after Pope shared a comparison earlier this week.<\/p>\n An eye-popping comparison<\/p>\n \u201cBraydon Hawthorne is a really unique player,\u201d the UK boss said. \u201cI can\u2019t wait \u2019til you guys get to watch him and see him on the court. I was with Tayshaun Prince for quite a while, maybe about a week ago, and he just \u2014 build, body, skillset \u2014 there is a whole lot of Tayshaun Prince in this kid. And I know those are big words. Tayshaun Prince is one of the best players to ever play here and had an incredible NBA championship career also.\u201d<\/p>\n The physical resemblance is uncanny, and a comparison that Hawthorne had heard even before coming to UK.<\/p>\n \u201cKinda all arms and legs,\u201d Pope said, adding that he really moves well for his size.<\/p>\n Hawthorne\u2019s high school coach used to make the same remark, prompting the wiry player to look up Prince \u2014 who starred for the Cats from 1998-2002 under coach Tubby Smith before becoming an NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons and an Olympic gold medalist for Team USA \u2014 on the internet.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw him do a little bit of everything \u2014 dunks, defense, shooting, all-around,\u201d Hawthorne said. \u201c\u2026 He\u2019s a great player. I\u2019m happy with that (comparison).\u201d<\/p>\n Challenging transition to the college game<\/p>\n Like Prince, one of the keys for Hawthorne in making the transition from high school to college will be adding weight and strength. At 175 pounds, practice can be challenging.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest difference is just physicality and little things, like using angles, that (the UK veterans) know how to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He has learned quickly, however, what the fastest way to earn playing time as a freshman will be.<\/p>\n \u201cDefense. You really gotta be on your Ps and Qs now,\u201d he said. \u201cNo plays off\u2026 That\u2019s what separates young guys from getting on the floor, defense.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freshman forward Braydon Hawthorne put up a shot during a recent UK practice. (Chet White\/UK Athletics) It\u2019s hard…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":90268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-90267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114911615597120109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}