A Kentucky basketball player is headed overseas to start his pro career
A former Kentucky player has found a new basketball home.
Ansley Almonor, a senior off the bench on Mark Pope’s first Wildcats’ team this past season, has signed with Salon Vilpas, a team in Finland’s top professional league. The pro team announced the signing Monday morning.
Almonor, 23, played his first three seasons of college basketball at Fairleigh Dickinson — averaging 16.4 points per game as a junior — before joining Pope’s first UK roster as a late transfer addition last summer.
In 36 appearances with the Wildcats, the 6-foot-7 forward from Spring Valley, New York, averaged 5.3 points and 1.6 rebounds in 14.2 minutes per game. He also made seven starts in place of injured teammates and shot 42.4% from 3-point range, the 19th-best single-season rate in program history.
More recently, Almonor represented UK as part of the La Familia team in the TBT. He said before debuting for that squad that he hoped playing in the nationally televised tournament would lead to more professional opportunities in the immediate future.
“Obviously, I’m going to continue playing the game,” he said. “I just don’t know where yet.”
He averaged only 1.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in three TBT games, however.
Almonor said before the tournament that he had no geographical preference regarding his next basketball stop.
