There are a lot of question marks surrounding Kentucky basketball going into next season, but one of the biggest is Braydon Hawthorne.

Not if Hawthorne will be on the roster, the redshirt freshman has already signed his NIL contract and announced he is returning, but how talented is he, and how impactful will he be?

The former Top-35 prospect was a late addition for the Wildcats last offseason, a cherry on top of what many believed was a Final Four-contending roster. That roster, suffering multiple injuries, didn’t reach the heights set for them, and Hawthorne elected to redshirt.

That didn’t stop Hawthorne from receiving rave practice reports, confirmed by the likes of Jack “Goose” Givens, or from Mark Pope comparing him to a Kentucky basketball legend.

“This Braydon Hawthorne, he is one of the most unique kids I’ve ever coached,” Pope said last summer. “I don’t know what his ceiling is, but if I were going to compare him to a player right now, and I’m doing this in incredible humility, there is so much of some type of Tayshaun Prince vibe in him.”

“This kid, I don’t know how soon it’s going to happen, but I think this kid has a chance to be special. He just might have the goods, man. Like, it’s very cool to watch it.”

After a season in the program and adding nearly 20 pounds to his frame, Hawthorne is ready to capitalize on his opportunity and prove he has the goods.

“Get ready,” his father, Walter, told Kentucky fans over the weekend on the Heavy Pour Sports Podcast. Of course, a father has the utmost confidence in his son, but he is confident because of the work Braydon has put in.

Braydon was often the first one on the court pregame, getting a workout in with one of the team’s graduate assistants. However, that work ethic was there behind the scenes as well, from the weight room to the practice court. It is also beneficial when an All-SEC player like Otega Oweh takes you under his wing.

“Oweh took Braydon underneath his wing,” Walter explained. “I really appreciate that a lot. Braydon learned a lot from a lot of him.”

Oweh not only provided an example of how to be a leader and how to conduct yourself as a player at Kentucky, but the two also played 1v1 every day in practice. Playing against a player who relies on their physicality, like Oweh, is a great way to prepare you for SEC play. With the work he has put in, multiple people have expressed their confidence in Braydon’s ability to handle the physicality of the SEC next season.

The staff is high on the impact Hawthorne can have for this team, and fans are intrigued by his potential. For Braydon himself, he just wants to win and prove himself.

“He’s trying to win,” Walter said. “He wants to make everyone proud. Kentucky was his favorite basketball team growing up, and for him to win a championship for Kentucky would mean the world to him.”

“He’s going to show everybody he’s got something to prove.”

Check out the full podcast here.

As next year’s roster becomes more and more complete, a key piece of the team is yet to officially announce whether or not he’s keeping his name in the NBA Draft.

Malachi Moreno, the star freshman who thrived under starting role-pressure last season, is still testing the draft waters and looking to accomplish his dream of playing professionally. On April 6, the Georgetown native elected to maintain his college eligibility and declare for the draft after he averaged 7.8 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game and 1.5 blocks per game.

Crucially, it’s understood that losing an inside prescience like Moreno would tank Kentucky’s expectations tremendously. He showed flashes of his potential last year, due to the injury of Jayden Quaintance, which is likely why his once dismal stock has now jumped up the charts.

While multiple publications are releasing updated mock drafts weekly, such as Yahoo Sports, who currently ranks Moreno as the No. 30 overall prospect, a new development has reassured the doubtful members of Big Blue Nation that the 7-foot big will be back for another year in the blue and white.

Making the original list of players to participate in the NBA Combine on Sunday, news broke that Moreno will no longer be participating from Kevin O’Connor, with a reason for why he changed his mind not identified. His name surfaced in several first-round mocks last week, but sources aligned with CBS Sports, ESPN and NBC still have Moreno slated as a mid to late second-round pick. His absence in the event will likely drop his stock.

One may assume that this is quite similar to Otega Oweh’s situation last offseason, who also wanted to see where he stood among the field, but even Oweh took part in the full combine and scrimmages before returning to Kentucky for his senior season.

Moreno’s decision to not take part doesn’t guarantee that he will return to school, but it is movement in the right direction for that to occur – he would frankly surprise everyone if he elects to keep his name in the draft, given the opportunity he has next year of being a lottery pick in a weaker college class.

His choice will eagerly be awaited by fans, hoping they can see a Kentucky kid in a Kentucky jersey for one more round of action.

There has been plenty of debate about Kentucky basketball potentially hiring a general manager.

While Mark Pope has not made that hire yet, soon after the end of last season, he hired Keegan Brown in a front office role as Kentucky’s Director of Roster Management.

Brown most recently spent two years with the Wisconsin Herd, the NBA G League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks, as video coordinator. There, he was involved with coaching operations, player personnel, player scouting, roster evaluation, and trade-related analysis, and even contributed to the Bucks’ pre-draft processes.

Before that, Brown spent five seasons alongside Pope at BYU, rising from video coordinator to Director of Player Personnel, eventually assigned to handle scouting coordination, roster construction planning, NIL strategy and allocation, and integrating analytics into personnel decision-making.

“In today’s game, roster management is everything, and Keegan is as good as it gets in that space,” Pope said.

Per Kentucky’s press release, Brown is involved in many of the responsibilities he had with Pope at BYU. Working closely with Pope and the staff, he will be involved in transfer portal evaluation and acquisition strategy, roster planning, scholarship allocation, resource optimization, player personnel scouting, evaluation and decision support, and coordinating information across staff, agents, and key external relationships.

Over the weekend, Brown himself took some time to provide more details of his role.

“The analytics is just the foundation for me,” Brown said. “Every day I’m talking to agents, building player projection models, running cap models with Nick, managing contracts start to finish, grinding film, and building the systems that power our front office. Blessed to be doing it at Kentucky.”

With the hire of Brown, there is still no hire of an official general manager, leaving the door open for that in the future.

For now, Mark Pope is okay with having a ‘GM team’ which he detailed last week, including Brown, the team also consists of Nick Robinson (salary cap management), Kevin Sergent (compliance), and Kim Shelton (JMI/NIL).