Kentucky basketball forward Andrija Jelavic enters transfer portal
LEXINGTON — Andrija Jelavić could be on the move after one season with Kentucky basketball.
The 6-foot-11 Croatian forward, a rising junior, entered the transfer portal Tuesday, as confirmed by USA TODAY Sports. Jelavić is the fifth player to transfer since Kentucky‘s 2025-26 campaign concluded, joining fellow forwards Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison along with guards Jasper Johnson and Jaland Lowe.
Jelavić told Kentucky Sports Radio on Tuesday he was “leaving the door open for a possible return” to UK.
While his final numbers weren’t eye-popping — Jelavić averaged 5.5 points and 4 rebounds in 15.6 minutes per game — the big man established himself as a starter for coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats in the last two months of the 2025-26 season. Jelavić started Kentucky’s final 20 games.
That he developed into a mainstay of the lineup represented a remarkable turnaround.
During a five-game stretch beginning with Indiana (on Dec. 13) and running through a matchup with Missouri (on Jan. 7) — with contests versus Bellarmine, St. John’s and Alabama in between — Jelavić combined to play a total of seven minutes. All that court time was against Bellarmine; he didn’t log a single minute in the other four games.
But he returned to the starting five in UK’s road victory over LSU on Jan. 14 and remained there the rest of the season.
The fallow period from mid-December through the early portion of January came on the heels of a regular role, as he played at least 10 minutes off the bench in all of the Wildcats’ first 10 games.
His best games in the points department occurred in the aforementioned road triumph over LSU, as well as victories over Eastern Illinois and South Carolina; Jelavić scored 11 in all three contests. He pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds in a rout of Tennessee Tech in November.
Jelavić made 47.7% (73 for 153) of his field goal attempts on the season. But his 3-point shooting, which was expected to be a strength, wasn’t evident: He connected on just 27.1% (21 for 76) of his long-range tries.
Jelavić committed to Kentucky in April 2025 after spending the previous two seasons suiting up for Mega Superbet, a Serbian team in the Adriatic League. Per ESPN, the Jelavic averaged 10.8 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.2 steals in 30 minutes per game in his two-season stint with Mega Superbet.
