Mike Thorne will visit Kentucky
Earlier I told you about Mike Thorne, a graduate transfer from Charlotte who popped up on Kentucky’s radar late last week. Thorne is looking at Pitt, Illinois, Kansas, and now Kentucky, and told CatsPause.com this afternoon that he will visit Lexington soon:
“It’s the premier team in college basketball. I’ve been watching them all my life. A lot of one and done go there. It’s a winning culture and has the craziest fans in America,” Thorne said, “so I’m definitely open to hearing what they have to say and getting up there and taking a visit.”
Kentucky is still in the hunt for several top recruits, including Stephen Zimmerman, Cheick Diallo, Thon Maker, Jaylen Brown, and Malik Newman, but the 6’11”, 270 lbs. Thorne would bring immediate experience to the Cats next season. He averaged 10.1 points and 7.3 rebounds last season for Charlotte, and will be eligible to play next season. That’s enough to get Calipari’s interest:
“He called me on Saturday. They want to sit down and talk with me and my family and see if I’m interested,” Thorne told CatsPause.com Monday.
Is Thorne the next Julius Mays for the Cats? To read more, check out Chris Fisher’s report.
11 Comments for Mike Thorne will visit Kentucky
This guy looks pretty good for depth purposes. As a guy that already averaged 10 and 7 for a D1 program, would he really have that much less of an impact than a guy like Thon Maker or Stephen Zimmerman as a freshman? Tough to say. I would prefer Zimmerman, Maker, or Diallo, but this dude definitely seems like a great back up plan.
We do not want Maker here, not very good. Sadly it looks like with Slice leaving Diallo will not come here and Zimm to UNLV seems solid now. We may need this transfer here next year, would rather have him than Maker. Diallo is the guy we need most.
If Zimmerman goes to UNLV, he’s most likely a one and done anyway, so why not have a GS with experience on the roster?
His FG and FT percentages are about equal, yikes on the latter. Played in every game this season but only avg about 25 min/game. A little concerned with his conditioning but that will be corrected. Terrible FT shooter, but, I’m never against a 7′ transfer.
hard to do much about his conditioning if he’s here for only two semesters
Hold down the fort ’til the” AXEMAN” cometh. (Wynard)
LOL at the Julius Mayes comparison. Please don’t remind me about that year. This guy is not good enough to play at UK. He wouldn’t have seen the floor on last years team. Look Cal knows something we don’t Zimmerman is going to UNLV and Maker might not even have the course work done in time to enroll. His guardian NOW says “Semptember or Dec or a post grad year in high school to play with his brother”. You heard that right, he is now throwing DEC out there to ENROLL! Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have him (Payne is a guru with Athletic bigs). But honestly he is not as good as everyone says he is (Skal destroyed him at the hoop summit). There is a reason Coach Cal seems desperate for BIGS as he should be. It’s looking real thin up front next year as good as Skal is, he is going to need some help down there.
Worst case scenario he sees limited mins for foul trouble worse case scenario ap can play the 4 as well as Lee can play 4/5
This would be a good Dakri Johnson replacement. Marcus Lee will have a break out year along with Skal blocking shots. This kid can just be a space eater and get some close to the basket buckets. I see no reason not to sign him.
Agree with some of the above. While Julius Mays was a good kid and hard worker, comparing anything to that team is in my opinion not a good thing.
SDC, a big difference between the 2013 team and next year’s team will be overall experience, along with the fact that we will have a proven quantity at point guard.Harrow was a good kid, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Ulis of Briscoe. Plus, Skal looks to be much better on offense than Nerlens was at the time.