Louisville lands Tennessee transfer Brandon Huntley-Hatfield

Tennessee freshman big man Brandon Huntley-Hatfield became the first recruit or transfer to commit to Louisville during the Kenny Payne era when he announced his commitment to U of L Sunday night.

Huntley-Hatfield, who took his official visit to Louisville over the weekend, picked the Cards over Auburn, Arizona State, SMU and Wake Forest, among others. The 6’10, 246-pound center has three years of eligibility remaining and can play for U of L in 2022-23.

“The connections Coach KP (Kenny Payne) has is amazing and I genuinely feel like he’s being honest with me,” Huntley-Hatfield told On3. “Whilst he was at Kentucky, he recruited & developed so many guys like me… guys that are where I ultimately want to get one day. I feel like he can help me in multiple ways.”

Huntley-Hatfield started 13 games for Tennessee last season, averaging 3.9 points and 3.0 rebounds per game for the SEC tournament champions. He scored 10 points in UT’s SEC tournament semifinal win over Mississippi State.

A native Clarksville, Tenn., Huntley-Hatfield was a 5-star prospect coming out of high school who picked Tennessee over Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Baylor and Auburn, among many others. He was rated at the No. 26 overall player in the class of 2021 by the 247 Sports composite rankings.

Kenny Payne certainly has an awful lot of frontcourt weapons to work with. Given his track record, that seems like something we should all be pretty excited about.