University of Kentucky senior guard CJ Fredrick entered his name in the transfer portal on Friday. On Monday, he found his new home.
The Covington Catholic alum announced his intentions to transfer to the University of Cincinnati via his Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Fredrick has spent the last two years at Kentucky after playing two seasons at Iowa. He appeared in 26 games and made 15 starts during his time in Lexington, missing the first year due to an injury.
Fredrick’s college career has been met with much adversity, battling through various injuries. When healthy, Fredrick was one of the best perimeter shooters in the country, the nation’s leading returner in career 3-point field-goal percentage (46.6%) with a minimum of 150 attempts after his two seasons at Iowa.
He missed four games his sophomore season at Iowa due to injury and in his initial year at Kentucky missed the entire 2021-22 season after undergoing hamstring surgery. During the 2022-23 season at Kentucky, he dealt with a hand injury that sidelined him for three games and a rib injury that forced him to miss four more games. He averaged 6.1 points in his lone season at Kentucky, connecting on 31% of 3-point attempts and dishing out 1.5 assists per contest.
Fredrick is set to graduate in May and will head to Cincinnati with a year of eligibility remaining.
His accolades at Covington Catholic are a long list which include the 2018 Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year, leading the Colonels to the 2018 KHSAA state title in which he was named the Sweet 16 Most Valuable Player. Fredrick averaged 23.1 points per game in his senior season and is the fourth all-time leading scorer in Covington Catholic program history. Fredrick is a Cincinnati native.
When announcing his decision to transfer out of Kentucky, he mentioned he was also going to consider professional options, but opted to stay in college.
He’ll have the opportunity on Wes Miller’s squad as a lot of minutes have become available for the Bearcats. Rob Phinisee and David DeJulius are out of eligibility while Landers Nolley declared for the NBA Draft and Jeremiah Davenport transferred to Arkansas.
Fredrick picked Cincinnati over West Virginia, Xavier, North Carolina, Indiana, St. John’s, Notre Dame and Oklahoma, according to 247 Sports.
