After a year off with injury, former North Meck star transfers to Kentucky
Former North Mecklenburg High star Davion Mintz will play his senior year of college basketball at Kentucky.
Mintz will be a graduate transfer for the Wildcats, a national power. Mintz started all but one game at Creighton before sitting out the 2019-20 season with an ankle injury.
At Creighton, Mintz averaged 9.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 28.8 minutes as a junior in the 2018-19 season.
Mintz, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior, can play both guard positions for the Wildcats, who could lose three guards to the NBA draft. Kentucky also lost freshman shooter Johnny Juzang, who transferred to UCLA this week.
Kentucky has recruited five-star point guard Devin Askew, and before Mintz joined the team, Askew could’ve been the only point guard on the roster.
That’s where Mintz, who will be 22 in June, can fit in.
“And that was my whole reason of going and committing — just because I can visualize t he pieces that coach Joel (Justus) and coach (John) Calipari were selling to me,” Mintz told the Lexington Herald Leader, a paper in the same McClatchy chain as the Observer. “It just made sense. And playing for a guy that’s highly respected ... in my mind, there’s no other coach that I’d want to learn from while taking the journey to the next level. I think he puts me in the best position to fulfill my dreams.”
As a senior at North Mecklenburg in 2016, Mintz was named District 9 player of the year by the N.C. Basketball Coaches Association. He averaged 20.7 points, 6.9 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 1.9 steals as a senior when he led North to a 27-3 record.
