Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope and players Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr talk to the media after the Wildcats’ 78-65 loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament on March 28, 2025, in Indianapolis. By NCAA| John Clay
A former Kentucky men’s basketball walk-on player has entered the transfer portal.
who spent three seasons at UK as a walk-on — announced Monday evening that he would be entering the portal.
A 6-foot-2 guard from Cincinnati, Darbyshire was a walk-on at UK for the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, which spanned the final two seasons of John Calipari’s tenure as head coach and the first season of the Mark Pope coaching era.
In a statement posted on social media, Darbyshire said he will graduate from Kentucky next month after only three years.
A native of Florence in Northern Kentucky, Darbyshire played in a total of six games as a Kentucky player. He didn’t play as a freshman during the 2022-23 season, but appeared in four contests as a sophomore and in two games last season.
“Being a walk-on at Kentucky has taught me so much,” Darbyshire’s statement said. “With the changing landscape of collegiate sports — roster limits, evolving philosophies and shifting dynamics — I’ve always stayed true to the core values of what it means to be a walk-on: To embody selflessness, to put the team first and to do whatever is best for my teammates and the future of the program. That mindset has allowed me to remain consistent with who I am and what I believe in, on and off the court.”
Darbyshire earned several significant academic accolades during his three seasons at Kentucky, including an induction into the Frank G. Ham Society of Character, which honors UK student-athletes who show a “profound commitment” to academic excellence, athletic participation, personal development, community service and career preparation.
Darbyshire was one of three walk-on players on the Kentucky roster last season. He was joined in this regard by Zach Tow and Walker Horn.
The deadline for college basketball players to enter the NCAA transfer portal is 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. Once in the portal, college transfers can make their decisions on where to go at any time.
Grant Darbyshire was a walk-on for three seasons with the Kentucky men’s basketball program.
Grant Darbyshire was a walk-on for three seasons with the Kentucky men’s basketball program. Eddie Justice UK Athletics
Kentucky basketball’s 2025-26 roster is coming together
Darbyshire’s announcement that he’s moving on from the Kentucky program comes as Pope is putting the finishing touches on his 2025-26 roster.
So far, Kentucky has 13 scholarship players in place for next season’s team.
This includes five expected returnees from last season’s team: Freshmen guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, freshman forward Trent Noah, sophomore center Brandon Garrison and junior guard Otega Oweh.
Chandler, Garrison and Noah have all announced publicly that they’ll be back at Kentucky next season. Oweh declared for the 2025 NBA draft while keeping open his option to return to Kentucky for his senior college season.
Kentucky has already announced the additions of four players from the transfer portal this spring. Those future Cats are sophomore forward Mouhamed Dioubate (Alabama), sophomore guard Jaland Lowe (Pittsburgh), freshman big man Jayden Quaintance (Arizona State) and freshman wing Kam Williams (Tulane).
On Monday afternoon, the Wildcats got a fifth commitment out of the portal from Denzel Aberdeen, a former three-year guard at Florida who won the national championship with the Gators last season.
UK will also be bringing in at least three first-year college basketball players next season. Two of these players — guard Jasper Johnson and in-state center Malachi Moreno — will arrive via the traditional high school recruiting pathway. The other is Andrija Jelavic, a soon-to-be 21-year-old big man from Croatia. Jelavic has played the last two seasons for Mega MIS, also known as Kosarkaski klub Mega Basket and Mega Superbet, a professional team based in Serbia.
Kentucky is working with the assumption that there will be 15 scholarships available for the 2025-26 season, an increase that’s expected to result from the House vs. NCAA settlement that could be finalized soon. This means UK would still have two scholarships to use to fill out next season’s team.
Pope and the Wildcats are also still involved in the recruitment of high school senior Braydon Hawthorne, a four-star small forward who was previously signed to play at West Virginia. Hawthorne took a recruiting visit to Kentucky last week.
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