The top scorer on the BYU men’s basketball team from the previous campaign, Jaxson Robinson, is currently a Kentucky Wildcat. Robinson, who will soon begin his fifth season of collegiate basketball, said on Thursday that he would forego the NBA draft in favor of moving to the UK to join head coach Mark Pope at BYU.
Robinson’s decision to transfer to the UK and his withdrawal from the draft were originally reported by ESPN. On April 23, Robinson made his first NBA draft declaration; on April 27, he registered through the NCAA transfer site.
He participated in the Chicago NBA draft combine in 2024, which was held May 12–19. Robinson, a 6-foot-7, 190-pound guard, spent the last two seasons playing under Pope at BYU after spending one season each at Texas A&M and Arkansas.
All I want to do, really, is succeed. “Where I am doesn’t matter,” Robinson declared during the draft combine. “My squad had a terrific victory at the combine today. I believe we proved that we were the superior squad.
We all had selfless games. Everyone had a meal. When everyone is winning, it just feels nice. So all that has meant to me since I started playing basketball is simply being willing to do whatever it takes to win the game.
With a career-high 14.2 points per game, Robinson led BYU in scoring the previous season. He also shot 35.4% from three-point range, 90.8% from the foul line, and 42.6% from the field.
He averaged 26.5 minutes per game while playing for the Cougars in 33 games last season, mostly as a bench player. With a true shooting percentage of 56.3, he was a vital member of an offensive team that, according to KenPom, was rated 14th in the country for adjusted offensive efficiency.
The 2024 Big 12 Conference Sixth Man of the Year was Robinson, a 21-year-old. At the draft combine, Robinson gave the Herald-Leader a glowing review of Pope and recently hired UK assistant coach Cody Fueger, who also transferred from BYU to Kentucky.
As of Thursday afternoon, Miyakawa, Robinson is ranked No. 89 among all transfer portal players. Robinson started thirty of the thirty games he played in during the 2022–2023 BYU season. During his rookie season in Provo, he scored over eight points per game on average.
Robinson was a four-star recruit out of Ada High School in Oklahoma in the 2020 recruiting class. He is currently ranked as the No. 66 overall prospect in ESPN’s NBA draft rankings. Robinson began his college career at Texas A&M after reclassifying from the 2021 to the 2020 recruiting group.
When attending Texas A&M or Arkansas, his second college destination, he never played against Kentucky. Robinson’s arrival in Lexington should give Kentucky’s team, which Pope is entirely rebuilding this offseason, more offensive punch.
In his first season as UK’s head coach, Pope has already added the following players to the Kentucky basketball team for 2024–25:
The following players are in their first year: guards Collin Chandler, Trent Noah, and Travis Perry; guards Otega Oweh (formerly of Oklahoma) and Ansley Almonor (formerly of Fairleigh Dickinson); forwards Amari Williams (formerly of Drexel) and Andrew Carr (formerly of Delaware and Wake Forest); and second-year center Brandon Garrison (formerly of Oklahoma State).
Robinson joins Pope’s roster of 13 scholarship players for the Kentucky team that plays in the upcoming season.
