Kentucky’s Travis Perry makes late decision to enter the transfer portal
Kentucky freshman Travis Perry will enter the NCAA transfer portal after one season with the Wildcats.
The news of Perry’s decision came just hours before the deadline for college basketball players to put their names in the portal, which closed for new entrants at 11:59 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
Perry — a 6-foot-1 guard from Lyon County — joins Kerr Kriisa as the only UK scholarship players to enter the portal, with teammates Otega Oweh, Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler and Trent Noah all opting to stick with the Cats beyond the portal deadline.
Oweh, the team’s leading scorer in Mark Pope’s first season as head coach, is still going through the NBA draft process, though he is expected to return to Kentucky for his senior year. He has until 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 28 to make a final decision on his future.
Chandler, Garrison and Noah all made previous statements over the past few days saying they would be back with the Cats for the 2025-26 season.
UK walk-ons Grant Darbyshire and Walker Horn both entered the transfer portal before Tuesday night’s deadline.
Perry, who is the state’s all-time high school points leader — and last year’s Kentucky Mr. Basketball award recipient — originally signed with UK in the fall of 2023, when John Calipari was still the program’s head coach.
The high school star attended Pope’s introductory press conference at Rupp Arena last April and reaffirmed his pledge to the Wildcats not long after that event, becoming one of the first commitments for Pope’s first Kentucky roster.
Perry ended up earning more playing time than most expected as a freshman, in part due to injuries in the Kentucky backcourt. Starting point guard Lamont Butler was hampered with a shoulder injury for the last half of the season, and Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson — Pope’s second and third options at lead guard — ended the 2024-25 campaign on the sidelines with injuries.
The freshman made four starts this past season — in the instances when Butler, Kriisa and Robinson were unavailable — and ended up averaging 2.7 points in 9.8 minutes per game over 31 total appearances.
Touted as an elite shooter out of high school — a skill that wowed even his veteran teammates in early practice sessions — Perry went just 18-for-56 (32.1%) from 3-point range, though he was making the adjustment from a longtime, high-usage starter in high school to a reserve player in college.
He didn’t play in Kentucky’s final two games of the season — an NCAA Tournament win over Illinois and a loss to Tennessee in the Sweet 16 — due in part to a wrist injury suffered in the SEC Tournament, where he played a career-high 30 minutes in place of Butler in a loss to Alabama.
Perry will have three seasons of eligibility remaining.
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Following UK’s loss to Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament, he reiterated his support for Pope and the head coach’s vision for the Wildcats’ program.
“Just the energy, the culture that he was bringing here was something that you want to be a part of,” Perry told the Herald-Leader that night. “He lived it firsthand, won a championship here, and he knew how much it means to Kentucky fans. And you know. this place — he says it all the time — this place changed him and made him who he is. And that’s ultimately what we hope to get out of this. You know, we want to hang banners. We want to win championships. But we also want to come out of it better people and better off from it.”
A few weeks later, Perry made the decision to look elsewhere as he contemplates his basketball future amid a crowded backcourt situation in Lexington.
Kentucky will be bringing in five-star freshman guard Jasper Johnson — a top recruit in the 2025 class — and the Cats have signed two high-profile perimeter players out of the transfer portal.
Former Pittsburgh point guard Jaland Lowe is expected to start at that position for the Wildcats next season, and former Florida guard Denzel Aberdeen — fresh off a national championship — could be his primary backup at point guard while playing major minutes elsewhere in the backcourt. Aberdeen, who will be a senior next season, committed to Kentucky on Monday.
Oweh and Chandler will also be key players on the perimeter for UK next season.
Pope has also added former Tulane wing Kam Williams — a 6-8 player who made 63 3-pointers as a freshman this past season — plus former Alabama forward Mouhamed Dioubate and former Arizona State post player Jayden Quaintance out of the transfer portal.
The Cats will also be bringing in McDonald’s All-American post player Malachi Moreno, along with Andrija Jelavic, a 6-11 player from Croatia capable of playing on the perimeter.
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 10:17 PM.
