Immanuel Quickley announced Monday that he will enter this year’s NBA Draft and forego his remaining two seasons of college eligibility. He became the third Kentucky player to enter this year’s NBA Draft, joining Ashton Hagans and Tyrese Maxey.
If the Southeastern Conference had a Most Improved Player award, Quickley would have been a prime candidate. After averaging 5.2 points as a freshman, he led Kentucky in scoring as a sophomore with an average of 16.1 points.
The SEC coaches voted Quickley the league’s Player of the Year.
“First and foremost, I want to thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ for blessing me with the talent to play the game of basketball,” tweeted Quickley, who said this past season that he believed focusing on his faith led to him making a big leap in his second year at UK. “With God, all things are possible.
“I want to thank Coach John Calipari, ‘Coach Cal,’ the entire UK coaching staff and administration, my brothers/teammates, and Big Blue Nation for all your love and support the past two years. I’m grateful for everyone that helped me along my journey.
“It saddens me that my brothers and I were not able to compete for the national championship this year due to circumstances beyond our control.”
Quickley, a 6-foot-3 guard from Havre de Grace, Md., displayed a knack for making clutch shots. That included making free throws. Quickley ranked third nationally in free-throw accuracy at 92.3 percent. He was even better with a game on the line. He made 38 of 39 free throws in the final four minutes of second halves and overtimes in UK games against teams from the so-called Power Five conferences, plus Evansville.
Arguably, Quickley’s most eye-catching performance came at Texas A&M. He scored a career-high 30 points, becoming the first UK player to score that many points in a game since Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 30 against Vanderbilt on Jan. 30, 2018.
In that game, Quickley made eight three-point shots, which was two shy of the UK program record.
“Immanuel was an absolute pleasure to coach over the last two years,” Calipari said in a statement released by UK. “I had as much fun coaching him and watching him grow than just about any player I’ve ever coached. … he absolutely works his tail off. He takes his conditioning seriously, has unbelievable discipline, unwavering faith, confidence and spent just about all of his extra time in that gym.
“His reward: SEC Player of the Year, as voted on by the coaches. I’ve been in this league for 11 years and only had that happen three other times. Think about that with some of the kids we’ve had go through here.”
With Quickley’s announcement about entering this year’s NBA Draft, expected decisions by two other Kentucky players remain unannounced. Nick Richards and EJ Montgomery have yet to announce whether they will enter the draft or return to UK next season.
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