Pitt transfer Jaland Lowe is looking forward to seeing for himself what Big Blue Nation is all about

Pitt transfer Jaland Lowe and his father, Marland, feel like they have an excellent understanding of what Kentucky basketball is about because of what the current UK coaching staff has told them along with numerous UK connections Marland Lowe has made during his 30 years working with various players and teams. However, they know they still may not be prepared for what life is really like as a UK basketball player.

“It’s one thing to hear it on the phone, so you get a good feeling about it, but to be honest with you, until you actually  — we get there and we see it ourselves, it doesn’t really sink in to that level,” Marland Lowe said. “When you get a chance to look at certain videos and certain clips of things in the way that the fan base is and the support, you see it.

“But then, it’s one thing to be in the middle of it yourself. So we’re looking forward to it. I mean, we’re excited about it —  Jaland is primarily — and we’re looking forward to it.”

Marland Lowe, a former college player, stopped playing one-on-one against Jaland when he was in the seventh grade.

“I had to turn into a bully against him and just start bullying him around a little bit to get to the rim, My fast twitch wasn’t as good as it used to be, so defensively I wasn’t about to be moving back and forth with him a whole lot,” the UK point guard’s father said. “He’d score a couple of times and after a while, I had to turn into old school Charles Barkley on him and just put him at the rim and that was that.

“But we still talk about basketball all the time. He’ll text me, ask me about the games on (TV)  and we’re going back and forth with texts. We talk all the time about it or will go through text a whole lot.”