Kentucky transfer forward Ansley Almonor was not highly recruited out of his New York-based high school. The 6-foot-7 floor-stretcher was considered a three-star prospect at St. Joseph Regional when he received an offer to play college basketball at Fairleigh Dickinson in 2021.

Even after three seasons with the Knights, which saw him make First Team All-NEC in 2023-24, he still wasn’t necessarily a known commodity. A handful of Power 4 schools reached out once he entered the transfer portal back in April, but he ended up scheduling visits to the likes of Iona, Siena, and Pepperdine. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Almonor took a visit to check out Kentucky in May. A few days later, he was a Wildcat.

Despite that, Almonor still has a serious chip on his shoulder.

“I always felt like I had that sort of talent and that drive, when I was in high school and stuff like that,” Almonor said in the video below. “But me not being really heavily recruited, that definitely hurt my confidence a little bit but I always felt like I was going to be able to play at that next level and my work ethic has always been to the point where I feel like people didn’t really work as hard as me. Nobody really saw that until I got older.

“I still got stuff to prove, you know? People don’t think I can be here, people don’t think I’ll be able to succeed here, so I gotta go out there and prove them wrong. That’s been me my whole life: proving everybody wrong.”

Get to know @ansleyalmonor pic.twitter.com/ezPvJ3lNqW

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) October 4, 2024

Basketball is in Almonor’s blood. His father and older brother are both hoopers. Living in New York throughout his childhood, Almonor was a huge Carmelo Anthony fan when Anthony was on the Knicks. He says that growing up in the area he did helped build his resiliency.

“In New York culture it’s different. It’s eat or be eaten. That’s how it is,” Almonor said. “It’s just tough out there and it definitely helped me become who I am today as a player. Just being in that cut-throat type environment, every man for themselves, playing in a lot of different park leagues, playing on a lot of different AAU teams, it definitely helped me be the player I am when it comes to toughness.”

Almonor won’t be expected to earn a starting spot in Mark Pope‘s first season as Kentucky’s head coach, but he’ll certainly have a role. He’s coming off a career season as a junior at Fairleigh Dickinson that saw him average 16.4 points and 5.1 rebounds in 32 minutes per outing. He shot 43.6 percent from the field, a career-best 39.4 percent from deep, and 80 percent from the free throw line.

He’ll have plenty of opportunities to prove the doubters wrong once the regular season begins in a month.

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