Kentucky basketball gets surprise commitment from in-state star Travis Perry

June 11, 2024

Travis Perry, the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school history, knows he pulled off a rare feat Sunday with a surprise commitment to John Calipari and his home-state Wildcats. He was widely expected to choose a school other than UK — he also considered Alabama, Cincinnati, Ole Miss and Western Kentucky — but Perry and his family insist this wasn’t a case of an extremely well-kept secret. Just an agonizing decision that ultimately came down to chasing a childhood dream.

“The last 48 hours were really stressful,” said his father, Ryan Perry. “We were at the table last night for, golly, about seven hours together as a family trying to get to a decision with Travis. I don’t think he really, truly decided until this morning. He was kind of back and forth. Those other coaches were so good in the process and really prioritized him, and that really made it hard on him. But I felt like all along his heart was obviously with Kentucky, being a Kentucky kid, and his legacy is already here in Kentucky, and I think he wanted it to stay that way.

“At the end of the day, he decided putting that Kentucky jersey on every morning was the most important thing to him, and that made the decision for him.”

Perry, a 6-foot-2 senior at Lyon County High, has been a varsity starter since seventh grade and has already amassed 4,359 career points. He’s a consensus four-star recruit, rated the No. 1 player in Kentucky, No. 6 point guard in the country and No. 80 prospect in the 2024 class by the 247Sports Composite. Perry also ranked among the top scorers and 3-point shooters on the Adidas grassroots circuit while playing for Indiana Elite. If he wins the state’s player of the year award this season, Perry would be the sixth Kentucky Mr. Basketball to play for Calipari, joining Darius Miller (2008), Jon Hood (2009), Dominique Hawkins (2013), Dontaie Allen (2019) and Reed Sheppard (2023).

Seeing Sheppard’s early success as a freshman for the Wildcats this season — and hearing the way Rupp Arena roars for a homegrown guy — had at least a little to do with Perry’s decision.

“Absolutely,” his father said. “He’s had close eyes on Reed, been pretty locked in on how he’s performed, and had conversations with Reed about what it’s like. I think Travis may see that it’s even more doable for him because he and Reed are a lot alike, play a lot alike, and that’s given him a little bit of confidence.”

“To get the chance to get on the floor with him would be pretty cool, two Kentucky kids wearing the blue and white together in Rupp,” Travis said. “Yeah, that’d be really neat. And that’s kind of what put it over the top for me, just realizing there’s a dream there to go play for Kentucky and help them win. That’s something pretty much everybody from Kentucky grows up wanting to do, and really people all over the country want to do, and getting that opportunity just felt like something I had to take.”

The moment Travis Perry committed to Kentucky!

What a Sunday surprise for the #BBN!

(YT/West KY Sports Network) pic.twitter.com/dF4N0qshxu

— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) November 12, 2023

Calipari and the Kentucky coaching staff spoke to Perry on Saturday night, then Calipari called him again Sunday morning, but there was no grand last-minute recruiting pitch. It was merely a repetition of a consistent message that, slowly but surely, sealed the deal.

“Travis is addicted to work and to competition, so coming into a program where Cal is very, very honest with everyone he recruits about how hard it is at Kentucky, that was something Travis loved,” his father said. “He loves trying to outwork people and prove that he can do things people think he can’t. Cal just told him, ‘If this is what you want, we want you.’ He told Travis he thought he was the kind of guy who would come in and embrace the challenge of Kentucky, which resonated with Travis, because he is.”

In hindsight, it’s a bit silly that anyone was surprised by Perry’s announcement on Sunday. Even if Cincinnati treated him like its top prospect for more than a year. Even if Nate Oats and the SEC’s latest “it” school came calling. Even if Chris Beard vowed to make him a star in Oxford, where there won’t be so many five-star recruits to potentially overshadow him.

Both Perry’s parents graduated from Kentucky. The whole family has been hardcore Cats fans for years. Among the old photos his father pulled out at the dinner table Saturday night: young Travis with Calipari in the team hotel on a road trip to Mississippi State years ago. One of Travis’ most prized possessions is a basketball signed by about 40 former Wildcats from the first time Calipari welcomed back an army of alumni to Rupp. Oh, and Travis wears No. 11 because John Wall is the first college player who captivated his imagination.

“He’s your typical Kentucky kid who grows up here dreaming of playing there someday,” his father said. “He definitely appreciates what Kentucky basketball means. He gets it. But still, we made it a point through the whole recruiting process not to pressure him about UK, to keep it middle ground all the way, so he could make the decision for himself, not what we wanted, not what everybody in Lyon County wanted him to do.”

In the end, everybody got what they wanted. When Perry unzipped his jacket Sunday afternoon to reveal a Kentucky shirt, an assembled crowd of friends, family, teammates and classmates inside the high school gymnasium erupted.

“A lot of people in that gym were surprised — and very happy — which was really kind of neat,” his father said.

“My phone has been blowing up, too,” Travis said. “It’s been a great welcome.”

(Photo: Courtesy of Adidas)

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