Now cleared, Andrija Jelavic is finally 'catching up' after missing summer

You never know until you officially know, even if confidence is high there won’t be any hiccups — probably just PTSD from Zvonimir Ivisic‘s complicated path to eligibility at Kentucky a few years back. That was the case for the Wildcats when it came to Andrija Jelavic, who knew from the beginning he’d be cleared, but finally got the go-ahead to confirm that confidence.

He’s good to go, immediately. No GoFundMe or billboards, no protests outside of the NCAA offices. Jelavic will be able to suit up in the exhibition matchups, then everything in the regular season, just as he expected.

“No drama, but I was expecting no drama,” Jelavic told KSR at UK Media Day on Monday. “From my academic side and all of the sides, I’m pretty clean. I was always good, no problem with school. I was expecting no eligibility problems, honestly.

“It was just a matter of whether I would get four or three years of eligibility, but I knew I would play from game one.”

Wait, four or three years of eligibility? That’s right. Though Jelavic has been cleared by the NCAA, he was officially ruled a sophomore both athletically and as a student after playing two seasons of professional basketball and turning 21 back in May while taking college-level classes with credits transferring to UK. That means he’ll only be able to play three seasons for the Wildcats in Lexington, assuming he needs that much college basketball before joining the NBA ranks.

Other than that, he’s good to go — and that clarity is music to his new head coach’s ears, even if that was the anticipated result from the beginning.

“It’s really great to put him in the mix and know that he’s going to be in the mix from day one,” Mark Pope told KSR. “That’s wonderful.”

He’s eligible to play right away, but is he ready? Jelavic missed all eight weeks of summer workouts while wrapping up coursework, which ran well into June. That pushed his arrival to August, leading to his own ramp-up process, followed by the start of team practices.

With the rest of his teammates having a two-month head start on the Croatian forward, Jelavic will be the first to tell you he was drowning a bit when he first arrived.

“The first week, it was tough, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “The first week, I was just trying to catch everything, the movements and everything. The second week was — I had the move and knew how to score, but I was struggling with finishing and keeping the ball in my hands, because guys here have really, really fast hands.

“They move pretty fast, and just the pace and energy we require is really high.”

Pope would agree with his newest forward’s assessment of those early struggles.

“You know, he came in — listen, summer is important for us,” Pope told KSR. “So he came in eight full weeks of study and work behind, and that’s hard. The way we play, it’s so decision-intensive and learning-intensive.

“So he is — since he started in the fall, it’s been a mad dash to try and catch up. I think his first couple of weeks, he is like, ‘Man, what have I signed up for?'”

The good news? There was light at the end of the tunnel when it came to those early struggles. Things started clicking for him late last week, going into the weekend on a big-time high note.

“I think last week, like last Thursday, Friday, Saturday, it was the first three practices that was like really good, that I had a really big impact,” Jelavic said. “I scored a lot, I assisted a lot, rebounded a lot.”

It’s a process, but the process is going well. He knows he’s juggling the lows with highs right now, and at some point, it’ll be much more of the latter than the former.

How long will that take? The plan is for fans to see it against the preseason No. 1 team in college basketball when Kentucky takes on Purdue in the first exhibition game of the season.

“I’m expecting a lot from this week,” he told KSR. “In my opinion, I’ll be fully ready for the beginning of the season, for Purdue.”

Pope is on the same page with him there, too.

“He is actually showing real signs of catching up,” he added. “He’s going to be really fun.”