Kentucky basketball lands transfer commitment from highly-touted forward
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Kentucky added a potential starter to its 2026-27 roster on Tuesday evening.
The Wildcats have landed a commitment from ex-James Madison forward Justin McBride. That’s according to a report from On3’s Joe Tipton, who notes that McBride averaged more than 15 points and 5 rebounds per game in 2025-26 while playing for the Dukes.
McBride had a career-year from beyond the arc in 2025-26 at JMU, hitting more than 40% of his efforts from 3-point range. However, for his career he’s hit 3-points at a 33.3% rate and and free throws at a 67% clip.
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Kentucky will hope that McBride can continue to hit shots at a high level in the SEC next season. It’s reasonable to expect that he could, given that he also set career-highs in 3-point volume (3.1 attempts per game) and free throw attempts (3.8) this past season.
UK will be McBride’s fourth collegiate program. He began his college career at Oklahoma State before transferring to Nevada and then to James Madison. He was largely a bench player at OK State and Nevada, but started 30 games for the Dukes this past season.
This news came less than an hour before 5-star target Tyran Stokes announced he will play for Kansas instead of Kentucky next season. The Wildcats are expected to pursue other transfer options in the coming weeks.
McBride is the third transfer to commit to Kentucky so far this cycle.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
