Kerr Kriisa, a 25-year-old Estonian basketball player who competed in NCAA Division I for six seasons across four universities, was arrested by FBI agents in Lexingto, Kentucky, on July 3. He is currently held at the Fayette County Detention Center and is expected to be extradited to West Virginia, where a court hearing is scheduled for the following week.
Kriisa was arrested in connection with a fraud investigation stemming from a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme connected to Kriisa’s time at West Virginia University during the 2023-24 season. Public details on the specific nature of the allegations remain limited at this time, according to a report from the New York Post.
The FBI has not issued a public statement detailing the charges, and the Fayette County Detention Center has confirmed Kriisa’s detention but stated it cannot release further information due to the federal nature of the proceedings.
Kriisa is the son of former professional basketball player Valmo Kriisa and was named after former University of Arizona and NBA player Steve Kerr. He began his organized basketball career with youth teams at BC Tartu around age 12 and made his professional debut with Tartu Ülikool in Estonia’s Korvpalli Meistriliiga (KML) at age 15 during the 2016–17 season.
His early professional experience also included stints with Brose Bamberg and its affiliate in Germany (2017–18), Žalgiris and Žalgiris-2 in Lithuania (2018–2020), and a loan to Prienai (2019–20). He appeared in the EuroLeague with Žalgiris, debuting on October 25, 2019.
Kriisa committed to play college basketball at the University of Arizona on April 18, 2020. He played three seasons with the Arizona Wildcats (2020–2023), appearing in NCAA Tournaments in two of those years, including as a top seed in 2022 before a Sweet 16 loss to Houston. He entered the transfer portal after head coach Sean Miller’s firing but returned for his sophomore season under Tommy Lloyd. In his junior year (2022–23), he averaged 9.9 points and 5.1 assists per game over 35 contests.
On April 5, 2023, Kriisa announced his transfer to West Virginia University. He played the 2023–24 season with the Mountaineers after briefly re-entering the portal following Bob Huggins’ resignation.
Prior to the season, West Virginia announced that Kriisa would serve a nine-game suspension for the 2023–24 regular season after admitting to receiving impermissible benefits while at Arizona.
“In late August 2023, West Virginia University learned of a potential eligibility concern for men’s basketball transfer student-athlete Kerr Kriisa, who admitted to receiving impermissible benefits while enrolled at the University of Arizona,” the university said at the time. “As a result of his actions, Kriisa will miss nine (9) 2023-2024 regular season games as part of his eligibility reinstatement.”
During the 2023–24 season at West Virginia, Kriisa appeared in 23 games, in which he averaged 11.0 points and 4.7 assists per game while leading the team in three-pointers made in those contests. He then transferred to the University of Kentucky for the 2024–25 season, where he played in nine games before a foot injury ended his year.
Following the conclusion of his college eligibility, Kriisa signed to play professionally for Tartu Ülikool in Estonia’s Korvpalli Meistriliiga and the Estonian-Latvian Basketball League beginning in 2026. He had also been announced as a member of La Familia, a University of Kentucky alumni team, for the 2026 edition of The Basketball Tournament (TBT), a single-elimination event offering a $2 million prize.
