A 6-foot-10 forward coming off a career season will be playing his fifth and final college basketball season in Lexington for new Kentucky coach Mark Pope.
On Sunday night, former Delaware and Wake Forest forward Andrew Carr committed to Kentucky out of the NCAA transfer portal. Carr’s commitment to UK, which he announced on Instagram, comes after he took a weekend recruiting visit to Lexington.
The 22-year-old Carr began his college basketball career with two seasons at Delaware before playing the last two seasons at Wake Forest. Carr entered the transfer portal on April 15, while also declaring for the 2024 NBA draft. Carr is a graduate transfer.
College basketball players (including graduate transfers) have until May 1 to enter the transfer portal. The early-entry deadline for the 2024 NBA draft was April 27, and players who enter the draft with remaining NCAA eligibility will have until May 29 to remove their names from consideration and return to school.
Carr made 112 career starts and has played in 117 career games. Carr has averaged at least 10 points and five rebounds per game in each of the last three seasons, and comes with real floor-spacing ability.
He is a career 34.4% 3-point shooter on significant volume: Carr has made 94 3-pointers as a college player.
Last season at Wake Forest, Carr had per-game averages of 13.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks, which were all career highs. He recorded seven double-doubles last season.
In his final game as a Demon Deacon, Carr scored a career-best 31 points in a loss to Georgia in the NIT second round.
The signing of Carr, who has one season of college eligibility left, was officially announced by Kentucky on Monday morning.
“Andrew Carr is the prototypical college and NBA power forward,” Pope said in a news release. “He’s incredibly skilled and an elite level decision maker. He shoots the ball with terrific range and is a force inside shooting 66 percent on 2-point field goal attempts.”
“Andrew understands what it means to wear this jersey and he understands the assignment and why he is coming to Lexington. He’s been a captain of every team he’s ever been associated with. He’s a steadying force and a great leader who Kentucky fans are going to love.”
Durability is also a key strength for Carr: He started all 68 games that Wake Forest played during his two seasons at the school, and was a 77.7% free throw shooter in those contests. Additionally, Carr started and played in 34 of 35 games during his final season at Delaware, which was the 2021-22 campaign.
Carr played in the 2022 NCAA Tournament with the Fightin’ Blue Hens after Delaware won the Colonial Athletic Association (now known as the Coastal Athletic Association) Tournament. He had 17 points and 12 rebounds in the CAA Tournament championship game win over UNC Wilmington.
Delaware was a 15 seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament and lost in the first round to Villanova. Carr had 13 points in that March Madness contest and was a perfect 5-for-5 from the field.
Per KenPom, Carr ranked in the top 100 in the nation last season in both true shooting percentage (62.5%, which was 76th in the country) and offensive rating (124.1, which was 84th in the country).
According to college basketball statistician Evan Miyakawa, Carr ranked as the No. 33 overall transfer portal player, as of Sunday night.
Originally an unranked recruit when he went to Delaware as part of the 2020 recruiting class, Carr is now the sixth confirmed player on Pope’s first Kentucky basketball roster for the 2024-25 season.
Carr will join first-year guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, third-year guard Otega Oweh, fifth-year guard Lamont Butler and fifth-year forward Amari Williams, who was Pope’s first addition from the transfer portal as UK’s head coach.
Oweh previously played two seasons at Oklahoma. Butler previously played four seasons at San Diego State. Williams previously played four seasons at Drexel.
MARK POPE BUILDS HIS FIRST KENTUCKY BASKETBALL ROSTER
Pope — the former head coach at BYU and Utah Valley and a key member of Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team — is constructing his first UK basketball roster from scratch.
Aaron Bradshaw (Ohio State), Joey Hart (Ball State) and Zvonimir Ivisic (Arkansas) are players from the 2023-24 Kentucky squad that will transfer to new schools. Additionally, Jordan Burks, Ugonna Onyenso, Adou Thiero and D.J. Wagner are still in the NCAA transfer portal.
Thiero has a return to Kentucky among his final five options. The other schools on his list are Arkansas (where he’d rejoin Calipari), Indiana, North Carolina and Pittsburgh.
Also from last season’s team, Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards, and Reed Sheppard have declared for the 2024 NBA draft. Tre Mitchell and Antonio Reeves have exhausted their college eligibility.
From the 2024 Kentucky recruiting class that was assembled by former head coach John Calipari, five of the six players who were committed to UK reopened their college recruitments (all but Perry).
Three of them — Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond — have announced plans to follow Calipari to Arkansas, where he now coaches the Razorbacks. Somto Cyril and Jayden Quaintance have yet to announce their new college plans, while the aforementioned Perry will still be in Lexington next season.