Justin McBride commits to Kentucky Wildcats Basketball

Nevada’s Justin McBride shoots while taking on Colorado State at Lawlor Events Center in Reno on Dec. 21, 2024. | JASON BEAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Kentucky Basketball needed a win in the transfer portal, and Mark Pope just delivered one. Following a frustrating stretch of misses, the

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Kentucky Basketball needed a win in the transfer portal, and Mark Pope just delivered one.

Following a frustrating stretch of misses, the Wildcats have bounced back. Justin McBride has decided that he is committing to play for the Cats, giving the roster a high-upside offensive weapon who is coming off the best season of his collegiate career.

UK Sports Network broke the news first.

This gives the Wildcats badly-needed addition in the frontcourt, as there’s a very real chance McBride will be the starting

4 when the 2026-27 college hoops season tips off.

The portal reality

Before we talk about the fit, we have to address the elephant in the room: Kentucky will be McBride’s fourth team in four years, after he began his career at Oklahoma State, transferred to Nevada, and then made his way to James Madison this past season.

In the old days, that would raise massive red flags about the player. But this is the NIL and portal era. In the near future, seeing kids play for five teams in five years is going to become standard.

The reality of the game today is that players will move each year to a better situation for more money, more playing time, or even better weather. You have to adapt, and Pope is doing exactly that by securing a player who fits what Pope did well in Year 1.

The return of the stretch 4

McBride brings a true “stretch 4” option back to Lexington. In year 1, Andrew Carr wasn’t great from deep, but teams had to respect him. It opened up a lot of passing lanes and allowed the offense to flow more freely.

While McBride is slightly undersized for the position at 6-foot-7, he carries a grown-man, 240-pound frame. He will be asked to use that sheer strength to bang in the post and hold his own on defense, forcing opposing bigs to step out of the paint and match up with his elite shooting on the other end of the floor.

His offensive leap last season at James Madison (shoutout to UK women’s coach Kenny Brooks’ alma mater, we see you) was staggering. McBride poured in 15.3 points and grabbed 5.6 rebounds per night while shooting a blistering 40.0% from 3-point range.

He shot just 24.1% shooting from deep the previous season at Nevada and 28.6% in his one year at Oklahoma State. We hope that doesn’t mean he is due for a regression.

Fixing last year’s mistakes

Pope has found another frontcourt option that seamlessly fits his system. This addition makes infinitely more sense than last year’s options. We saw the offense completely bog down because Mo Dioubate simply couldn’t shoot, and Andrija Jelavic was wildly miscast as a high-volume 3-point shooter.

McBride is built to step directly into that perimeter-shooting frontcourt role and actually convert his looks. And he is a former 4-star recruit, so it’s not like the talent was never there. Maybe his upward trajectory continues.

The roster picture

This commitment is a massive sigh of relief, but no celebration can happen just yet. The roster still has a couple of open spots. Here is where the scholarship chart currently stands:

Returners (5)