Collin Chandler believes marriage will only elevate his game on the court

There is no official stat on how many Kentucky Basketball players were married during their college careers, but Collin Chandler has to be one of the few, possibly the only in the modern era. Chandler married his longtime girlfriend Hannah on May 8, quite a big life decision for the 21-year-old rising sophomore.

Yesterday, Chandler sat down to catch up with reporters. As you might expect, he fielded a lot of questions about his new role as husband, which he thinks will only improve his performance on the court.

“Well, I’m sure there are many things that I’ll find out [about marriage] the more time goes on, but what I will say is that basketball, a lot of it is mental,” Chandler said. “There are a lot of mental aspects of the game, in your performance, and being around Hannah helps me a lot with that, in kind of understanding what the focus of my life should be and staying grounded.

“And she helps me understand because sometimes my life is basketball, right? And if I’m not playing well, I’m not feeling joy, or if I’m playing well, I’m feeling over the moon, and she helps me to where, the way that I’m playing doesn’t dictate the amount of joy that I’m feeling in my life, and so I do know that that makes me a better person, but also my mental state better as a basketball player.”

This time last year, Chandler was coming off a two-year mission with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He spent most of last summer transitioning back to basketball, which was just as much of a mental adjustment as a physical one. He averaged 2.7 points and 1.0 rebounds per game as a freshman and really found his groove toward the end of the season, hitting a three in each of Kentucky’s final seven games. Now, ahead of what is expected to be a breakout sophomore year, Chandler is ready to hit the ground running.

“I know my environment a little bit better,” he said of this summer compared to last. “I was coming in a little bit blind last year about what to expect from just coming home as a missionary. It’s kind of a whirlwind of life changing, as well as playing basketball for the first time [in two years], and then also playing basketball at an extremely high level.

“I didn’t really know what to expect, how to go about it, whereas I feel like this year, offseason, I know exactly what I’m supposed to be working on. I know what I can do. I have a lot of experience on the court for what I can do and things I can get better at, and so I think I have a lot better vision of what I need to do. I think that’s the biggest difference.”

What can we expect from the new Mrs. Chandler in the stands, especially if Collin takes a big second-year leap? Chandler joked that it’s nothing like the other Mrs. Chandler in his life, his mother, Jennifer.

“I don’t think she worries too much about it. My mom, on the other hand, is different. She’s sometimes a wreck in the games. Like, sometimes, at least, when I was in high school, I would look up and try to find her, and she was like, pacing in the stadium or in the bathroom because she couldn’t watch. Hannah’s much more calm, I would say. But she handles it very well.”

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Chandler couldn’t wait any longer to get married

Chandler was one of two Wildcats who got engaged last season. He and Andrew Carr both proposed to their girlfriends on Kentucky’s trip to New York City to face Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic. Several players have gotten engaged during their college careers, but few have actually walked down the aisle before graduation; Chandler said his relationship was too important to him to wait.

“Everyone has their, maybe not priorities, but their goals in life and things that are important to them. Hannah’s been very important to me for a long time, and someone who has played a huge role in my life; I almost don’t really remember my life without her. So that’s someone that I’ve wanted to keep close and know that I want to have around me and start a family with, and that’s a big priority in my life.”

Getting married at an early age is common in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Several of Mark Pope’s former players at BYU were married, and had Pope not taken the job at Kentucky, Chandler could have been one of them, as he originally committed to the Cougars in 2022. Things are a little different at Kentucky, and Chandler said he’s happy to talk to his teammates about his big life decision.

“All guys are different, and so I’ve had a lot of conversations with guys. It’s kind of like maybe weird to them, a guy that’s 21 and getting married, but a lot of guys respect it, and I think a lot of guys also prioritize family on the team, and so they’ve been very respectful. Yeah, it’s been cool.”

Thankfully, the newlyweds won’t have to live in the Wildcat Coal Lodge. They’re renting a place in Lexington and recently moved in, giving Chandler plenty to do when he’s not in the practice facility. As his honey-do list grows, he’s looking forward to putting some of his wedding presents to good use.

“I have not yet,” Chandler said of getting into do-it-yourself projects. “I’ll probably need to, at some point. We’ll see. I might have some stories. For our wedding, we got, I got a gift basket with some drills and stuff like that. So we’ll see. We’ll mess around with that a little bit. But no, it’s been good. We’ve been working hard to get settled.”

Get ready to learn Home Depot, Collin.

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