Travis Perry making an impression on his UK teammates in practice

LEXINGTON, Ky. (KT) — Travis Perry has been impressed with his supporting cast at Kentucky and the attention he’s received since he arrived on campus has been the biggest surprise to the reigning Kentucky Mr. Basketball.

“All these guys are experienced veterans,” Perry said Thursday. “They've all proven themselves on multiple stages. They (could have) come in and all just kind of kind of push over you and not really want to help you at all. But, they're all such great guys and want to help you, sometimes even go out of their way to help you before helping themselves. All these guys are just just so willing to help and that's something that's been really big for us.”

Perry finished his prep career as the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky High School history and capped it off by leading Lyon County to the school’s first-ever state championship. His reputation as a prolific scorer has been on display in practice this summer. As part of a team-building exercise, the Wildcats began a free-throw shooting competition and Perry made 100 straight free throws for three straight days.

“It’s good team building thing and also just to make sure we're all getting our shots in,” Perry said.

He also made 59 consecutive 3-pointers during an earlier practice session. It wasn’t the first time Perry has made a string of consecutive 3-pointers behind the scenes.

‘In high school, coach Tom Ricketts would stay and rebound for me every day,” he said. “We would go and we had a rule like, no talking. Basically, there's just shooting and not a lot of misses. And that was the goal. I think I got like mid-80s one time with him. We were pretty locked in (during) those times and that's that's the goal.”

He admitted missing is “awful” but added that it involves pressure even when shooting an open 3-pointer.

“When you start getting above 30, you kind of start thinking about it a little bit, start getting a little bit pressure in your head,” he said. “ But it's just it's fun to kind of compete against yourself every day. You have guys in there that are working with you.

“We have great managers that rebound for us whenever we want it. And, they're there is locked in as well. So it's a lot of fun to shoot with them.”

His teammates have taken note of his shooting ability, including veteran guard Kerr Krissa.

"Travis is phenomenal.” he said. “I’ve had some pretty good shooters around me, but he's definitely up there. He's, he's very smart. And he works hard. He really does...He's is in the gym and and the results are showing.”

The freshman guard said coach Mark Pope’s system “isn’t complicated” and admitted learning it has been “pretty simple" thanks to his teammates.

“It might be more complicated for a guy like me coming in that’s never played college basketball before,” he said. “But you see (the veterans) and they know exactly what he's talking about — maybe just a little bit different of language. But it just makes it so easy to learn whenever you have such great guys in front of you.”

Overall, Perry said his first summer as a Wildcat has been everything that he expected and more, especially competing against former members of the team who are part of the La Familia squad competing in the $1 million Basketball Tournament event.

“It's been incredible,” he said. “Those are the guys that you grew up watching and dreaming of being those guys. And then now you're the guy that's here playing and they come back and you get to compete against all of them, practice against them, just hang out with them. It's pretty incredible. It's hard to describe really.”