Kentucky’s 2028 recruiting board already has a familiar Illinois name on it, and this one comes with plenty of basketball pedigree.
UK has offered scholarship to Brady Pettigrew, the 6-foot-3 guard from Bolingbrook High School who 247Sports ranks as the top combo guard in the junior class. He’s one of nine high school juniors to hold an offer from the Wildcats, and Kentucky extended its offer in July.
Brady Pettigrew is the latest member of the family to come through Bolingbrook coach Rob Brost’s program. Brost has known the Pettigrews for nearly 20 years, and the connection runs deep: Titcus Pettigrew, Brady’s father, played basketball and football at Penn State and now serves as Bolingbrook’s head football coach. Brady’s older brother JT starred for Brost at Bolingbrook, finished his prep career as the school’s all-time leader in blocks and rebounds, and scored more than 1,000 points before going on to Valparaiso, where he was a Missouri Valley Conference All-Freshman team selection last season.
Now it’s Brady’s turn to draw national attention.
He’s already built a reputation as a high-volume scorer, and the numbers back it up. Playing this spring and summer with Brad Beal Elite on the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League circuit, Pettigrew averaged 24.8 points per game while shooting 48.3% from the field, 30.2% from 3-point range and 74.5% at the line. He finished as the second-highest scorer in the EYBL’s 16-and-under division and was named MVP in that age group.
“Everybody sees his ability to score, and that’s obviously a strength of his because he can score the ball,” Brost told the Herald-Leader. “But his versatility and his ability to compete at the highest level all the time is a unique trait of his.”
That scoring punch is a big reason Pettigrew sits at No. 18 overall in 247Sports’ 2028 rankings, while ESPN has him inside its top 10 for prep juniors. He backed up that status at Bolingbrook last season, putting up 20.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.0 steals per game and earning honorable mention MaxPreps Sophomore All-American recognition.
But Brost said the real separator is everything else Brady brings.
“Brady’s work ethic combined with his attitude - and I mean this in a good way - his attitude during games as far as his instincts and his ability to affect winning on both sides of the ball, is really, really elite,” Brost said. “He can play a role.
He can score the ball. He can defend.
He can rebound. He can run the 1.
He can run the 2. So his versatility and his ability to do multiple things with and without the ball really kind of sets him apart from a lot of the elite players because he will do whatever it takes to win.”
RecruitLook Hoops scout Treal Holland II said Pettigrew’s competitiveness stands out just as much.
“His competitive drive jumps out immediately, but in addition to that he plays on both ends of the floor,” Holland told the Herald-Leader. ”He doesn’t take plays off and as shown during the Peach Jam this year, he is going full throttle until the final buzzer.”
At the Nike EYBL end-of-season tournament, Pettigrew led the 16-and-under circuit in scoring while playing in front of dozens of college coaches. Holland said his growth has gone beyond simply getting to the rim.
“He has shown the ability to be a consistent three-level scorer, and as his game has grown he doesn’t rely solely on his athleticism trying to get to the rim on every play,” Holland said. “Developing (an) in-between game has taken his game to another level.”
Pettigrew has already spent time alongside high-level talent at Bolingbrook. As a freshman, he shared the floor with JT and Davion Thompson, the four-star point guard now a freshman in John Calipari’s Arkansas program. Pettigrew started every game that season, and that early role helped set up his breakout sophomore year and the recruiting surge that followed.
In early August, Pettigrew said on social media that he had picked up more than 30 scholarship offers, including from Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, North Carolina and Kentucky. He’s now lining up nine official visits from September to January, beginning with Michigan this past weekend. The rest of the itinerary includes Indiana, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Kentucky, BYU, Ohio State and Arkansas.
His trip to Lexington is scheduled for Oct. 23-25, the same weekend as Kentucky’s exhibition game against Texas Tech and a UK football home game against Vanderbilt. Pettigrew has previously pointed to his growing relationship with Mark Pope and new assistant coach Mo Williams as important parts of Kentucky’s push.
There’s plenty of basketball know-how in the family, too. Brady’s mother, Bonnie, was an All-American volleyball player at Penn State and won a national championship there, while his older brother Trey played at Eastern Michigan and Nevada and is now on the roster at Morgan State.
Even with the attention piling up, Brost said Pettigrew has stayed grounded.
“There’s a lot of things on his plate, so to speak, just because of the exposure that he gets and the exposure our team gets and the things that are expected of him,” Brost said. “And to take all that and still remain humble and still continue to work as hard as he does. His work ethic is another thing that sets him apart.”
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