That was quick: SDSU transfer Lamont Butler commits to Kentucky

Here’s how upside down the college basketball world is right now:

Last November, San Diego State played a road game against BYU and coach Mark Pope. Aztecs guard Lamont Butler had nine points on 3 of 11 shooting, no rebounds and three assists in 33 minutes of a 74-65 Cougars victory.

Next fall, Butler will be playing for Pope … in Lexington, Ky.

Barely 36 hours after announcing he would enter the transfer portal and start scheduling campus visits to potential suitors, Butler picked Kentucky for his final season of eligibility.

“He’s a Wildcat,” Butler’s father, Lamont Sr., said via text message.

Word traveled quickly Friday afternoon, before Butler had posted any confirmation on social media. Asked to verify the reports, Butler Sr. texted: “Yes sirrrrrr. Done.”

Butler Sr. declined to provide the NIL inducement from Kentucky’s boosters, but in discussing the decision to enter the portal Wednesday night, he called it a “business decision.”

“Our family, we sacrificed last year financially and this year we just weren’t willing to sacrifice again with the opportunities that before us,” he added. “We talked and said, ‘We’ve heard the numbers out there, so let’s get in the portal and see how it goes.’ We talked to (coach Brian Dutcher) and were respectful, and he said, ‘I can’t stop you guys. This is a business decision you have to take on.’

“And that’s basically what it is.”

Butler was believed to have made close to $200,000 at SDSU last season — $50,000 from the MESA Foundation, SDSU’s basketball collective; $50,000 privately from a booster; and an estimated $75,000 to $100,000 in “real” NIL deals to promote smoothies, burritos, clothing retailers and other local business.

Butler committed without visiting the Lexington campus. Pope and his staff reportedly flew to Las Vegas on Friday morning, met with the family and the 6-foot-2 point guard had pledged his allegiance by early afternoon.

Asked what appealed to his son about Kentucky, Butler Sr. said: “Starting point guard on a bigger stage.”

There is no debate about the stage, given the program’s blue blood pedigree and massive following by Wildcat Nation. That, no doubt, will be an adjustment for a player who admittedly shies from the spotlight, preferring to defer to teammates and speak about others instead of himself.

SDSU and Viejas Arena are one thing. Kentucky is a whole different level of attention.

“If you know Lamont, you know he likes to be in the background,” Carmicha Butler, his mother, told the Union-Tribune earlier this month about his sudden fame following his dramatic buzzer-beater at the 2023 Final Four. “He doesn’t want to be out front necessarily. I think he handled it very well. If one of his teammates had hit the shot, he would have been just as excited, maybe even more excited, for them.

“It wasn’t a distraction, but it did push him out of his normal character to be out front more.”

Whether Kentucky is a…