Kentucky basketball lands 4-star high school forward Braydon Hawthorne

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky coach Mark Pope continues to build on his top-five overall recruiting class for his second Wildcats' team.

The latest addition comes from the high school ranks. Braydon Hawthorne, a 6-foot-8-inch, 175-pound forward from Huntington, West Virginia, spurned his home-state school and several others, including Duke, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech, to join Kentucky.

Hawthorne has a four-star rating from 247Sports, which lists him as the No. 33 player overall and top player in West Virginia.

He joins a class that already includes four-star recruits Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno and Croatian big man Andrija Jelavic. Pope's six-man transfer class – which includes Florida's Denzel Aberdeen, Alabama's Mouhamed Dioubate, Jayden Quaintance of Arizona State and Pitt's Jaland Lowe, ranks fourth in the nation, as does his overall 10-player class.

The Wildcats are still awaiting a decision by guard Otega Oweh, who is testing the NBA Draft waters. Lowe also entered his name for draft consideration.

If everyone joins the team, Pope now has filled 14 spots on next season's roster.