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West Virginia just keeps giving to Kentucky basketball.
First it was Oscar Tshiebwe for two years and then it was Tre Mitchell last season. Now another West Virginia transfer has picked Kentucky to be part of coach Mark Pope’s first UK team.
Kerr Kriisa, a native of Estonia, played three years at Arizona before transferring to West Virginia last season where he averaged a career-high 11 points, 4.7 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game while hitting 43 percent from the field, 42 percent from 3 and 78 percent at the foul line.
The 6-3 guard started 23 games after missing nine games after being suspended by the NCAA for accepting impermissible benefits while at Arizona.
Krissa was a four-star recruit for Arizona and a top 75 player in his recruiting class and 12 best point guard prospect according to 247Sports’ rankings.
Krissa gives Pope a veteran point guard he needs to lead what will be a completely new Kentucky roster that so far has seven transfers and two incoming freshmen.
He played in only eight games his freshman season at Arizona but he started 31 games as a sophomore. He averaged 9.7 points, 4.7 assists and 2.5 rebounds per game. His junior season he started 34 for Arizona and averaged 9.9 points, 5.1 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game while shooting 37.2 percent from 3 to help Arizona get a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Pope tried to recruit Krissa out of high school and again when he transferred from Arizona. Krista scored 23 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field (5-for-10 from 3), grabbed five rebounds, handed out four assists and made two steals in 36 minutes in a loss to Pope and BYU last season.
He joins Amari Williams of Drexel, Andrew Carr of Wake Forest, Brandon Garrison of Oklahoma State, Otega Oweh of Oklahoma, Koby Brea of Dayton and Lamont Butler of San Diego State as transfers headed to UK for the 2024-25 season.
9 Responses
Does anyone know much about Kriisa? I’ve heard he is a streaky shooter who commits just as many turnovers as assists, doesn’t play defense at all, and is a big trash talker. There must be something to his game or Mark wouldn’t have chased after him so hard. I hope he will be a team player…I guess time will tell. It will be interesting to see how Perry fares with all of the guards that have been added to the team. Not may expected Sheppard would see much action before the Bahamas, but he played his way onto the floor…even though he rarely started. I would love to see Perry emerge as the unsung hero for this group.
I am confident Perry will light it up and any players not 100% in sync will be at the end of the bench.
You have a legit question, but the new guy may need a HC to be firm with him.
Agree, LB.
Players will usually do what the coaches let them get by with. I don’t see Pope as a coach who will put the individual players careers ahead of the team goals.
I watch alot of out west basketball. Because I usually have money on the games I study what each team delivers. I know his sophomore and junior years he was a incredible player. He’s a pass first point guard who likes to get everyone involved. His stats suffered last year being on a terrible team. It seemed to me that he was out of sync with the rest of his team. He will be the teams starting point guard. He has gotten noticeably better every year in college and I expect his turnovers go down much more since he will be on a team full of players with starting experience. Sometimes its like he knows what the defense is going to do before they do it. He would have averaged about 16 ppg and 8 apg if he was on a decent team at West Virginia. For some reason other teams would double him as he drove to the paint. He would kick it out and its like the guy with the ball never knew what to do with it. He’s a underrated shooter as well. I don’t think he enjoyed losing last year because he’s super competitive. As of right now I would say the starting 5 on Kentucky’s team will be…. PG Kriisa SG Brea SF Oweh PF Carr C Garrison. Perry and Chandler will be next years Rob and Reed. Butler will back up Kriisa. Williams will rotate with the front court pieces. One more note Carr is extremely underrated. He’s going to be a stud next year. The thing I like about this team is that your getting players that get noticeably better every year. This year every player on this team will have the best year they’ve ever had. That’s one thing Pope does like Pitino he gets the best out of his players. If Jaxson Robinson commits we will be a title contender and even with out him I say we get to the final 4
UK now stocked up with guards & also 3 bigs. 1 more big & 2-3 SF’s would give Pope enough players w/ experience + 2 great FR to develop a full court shark feeding frenzy D for 40 min. In the last 8 min (2 segments), the opponent wears down – legs won’t lift for good jump shots.
& UK offense racks up 3’s as the opponent tires after running around to follow relatively fresh UK legs w/ motion, screens, set plays!
UK guards w/good assist averages will involve the bigs on offense, inspiring shark feeding frenzy style D.
Complaints about Larry V are not acceptable to over 99.9% of VV members. No one wants to see or hear about the hog calling fraud but he’s still in the SEC so hard to avoid.
Enjoyed Barry & TJ comments 👍
We are on post player away from having a possible platoon system. Don’t forget about Chandler and Perry. Chandler is more athletic but I think Perry is a little bit better of a shooter. They both need to hit the weight room and gain 10 pounds of muscle, and then they will fly. Them and Garrison and Oweh are the future for Kentucky we will be able to build around them. Pope has really surprised me at first I was like whaaaaaat and now I think he’s doing a unbelievable job. We need another SF/PF and maybe another big guard like that boy for Miami. He would be a excellent addition.
I’m thinking that getting a bunch of players that haven’t ever played together is gonna be the coaches hardest task, and maybe having to break some bad habits of the the players former coaches but we have a team of VETERANS at every position.
Coach Pope dig us out of this hole we’ve been in for the last decade and coach these players up, you have the full support of Big Blue Nation. I can’t wait till your first post game press conference….. No double talk, just what happened in the game, it’s gonna be a pleasure…….
going to be a new challenge for him Kevin