‘This is wild.’ Reece Potter enjoys Lexington homecoming with UK basketball
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky basketball player Reece Potter provides Wildcats with frontcourt depth.
- Potter, listed at 7-foot-1 and 230 pounds, previously played two seasons at Miami (Ohio).
- Potter is a former high school basketball star at Lexington Catholic.
Reece Potter is making history this season with Kentucky basketball.
A former hometown high school star at Lexington Catholic, Potter’s decision to transfer from Miami (Ohio) — where he spent his first two college seasons — to Mark Pope’s UK program came with historic significance.
The 7-foot-1, 230-pound Potter is the first recruited, scholarship player from Lexington to play for Kentucky in the 21st century. (Kentucky freshman guard Jasper Johnson is a Lexington native who lists the city as his hometown, but he played his high school basketball at Woodford County in Versailles before transferring out of state.)
This isn’t merely an interesting piece of trivia. It matters to Potter, now a college junior, who grew up an ardent UK fan.
“Anytime you would see the players, you would always try to ask them for a picture, ask them for autographs,” Potter said in a sit-down interview with the Herald-Leader.
“Being able to do that now, it’s awesome. Every instance I can, I’m always able and willing to take those pictures with any fans, sign autographs, because once upon a time it was me doing the same thing. So it’s kind of awesome to be able to relive that and see how the kids feel.”
You can also cast aside notions of this being a purely feel-good story. Potter is at Kentucky to win, both from a team perspective as the Wildcats pursue their first Final Four appearance since 2015, and from an individual one.
In mainly a bench role, Potter averaged 6.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game in 56 appearances for the RedHawks over the past two seasons. By coming to Kentucky, Potter tossed away a known spot in the Miami rotation. It will be a tough ask for him to earn regular playing time at UK among a group of contributors that includes 10 newcomers and four returnees. (Potter didn’t play in Kentucky’s exhibition win over top-ranked Purdue last week due to illness.)
But that’s the whole plan for Potter, who is taking a chance on himself and his development by coming home to close his college career.
“Kentucky’s the top place for basketball. So that was always the dream, to be able to compete at this level, be able to be at the top school,” Potter said. “... Growing up, it was never really, like, a set thing. I was never really like, ‘I have to play at Kentucky.’ But now that I’m here, it’s awesome being able to live this dream of mine.”
Reece Potter returns to Lexington as a UK basketball player
This season’s Kentucky basketball team features the most in-state talent in decades. It’s the first time in 20 years that a UK squad features four recruited, scholarship players from the commonwealth.
Potter is joined in this regard by freshmen Malachi Moreno (Great Crossing) and Johnson (Woodford County), as well as sophomore Trent Noah (Harlan County).
Less is expected of Potter compared to those other Kentuckians, but his reserve role at Miami last season (30 appearances off the bench with an average of more than 17 minutes per game) nearly ended with an NCAA Tournament trip: The RedHawks went 25-9 overall during the 2024-25 campaign and lost on a last-second layup to top-seed Akron in the MAC Tournament title game.
Potter had plenty of praise for Miami coach Travis Steele, the former head coach at Xavier, when reflecting on his previous college stop. But Potter also acknowledged his desire to try something different after the mid-major experience.
“I kind of told (Steele) toward the end of the year, I was like, ‘Hey, I think I want to go to a bigger program. I want to compete at the highest level,’” Potter said. “Playing in some of the buy games that we played as a mid-major. We played Indiana and stuff like that, and how fun those games were for me. Those were the most fun games I’ve ever had in my life.”
After entering the transfer portal, Potter returned to Lexington for a weekend at home with his parents, David and Sherri. During that trip, Potter’s portal journey took an unexpected turn when UK assistant coach Cody Fueger contacted him.
“At the time I was getting recruited by some great schools. But then, Fueger reached out, I’m like, ‘Hey, Dad. This is wild,’” Potter said. “Neither of us really thought that going into the portal. We had some big schools that we were looking at, but nothing like Kentucky.”
An hour later, Pope FaceTimed Potter.
“A guy like that calling you and is interested in you to (go) play at their school. I mean, it was super cool to hear and very humbling for sure,” Potter said.
From Pope’s perspective, the addition of Potter carries several benefits.
There’s the obvious, if unscientific, value of having a former local prep basketball standout around. In 2023, Potter was both the Lexington Player of the Year and the 11th Region’s player of the year after averaging 17.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game as a senior.
Brandon Salsman, Lexington Catholic’s longtime boys basketball coach, remembers when a smaller version of Potter played point guard for the middle school team. As Potter grew, he retained his perimeter skills to become more than just a standard post player.
“I vividly remember (Potter) and his mother walking in for freshman orientation his freshman year, and I saw them walking through the door and I looked down at his pants, and he has literally got pants on that are barely covering his calves,” Salsman said.
“... When we switched to running more of a Princeton style (offense), and getting him the ball, it fit him just perfectly. He had the ability to pass the ball. He was a great passer. He could shoot. He had a great mid-range game. Instead of trying to play him with his back to the basket, we turned him into what you kind of see UK is trying to do with their bigs.”
Potter’s addition to the Kentucky roster also acts as an insurance policy for the UK frontcourt. The lion’s share of the minutes are expected to go to juniors Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison, international addition Andrija Jelavic, in-state recruit Moreno and, once healthy, top transfer pickup Jayden Quaintance.
But roster availability can change in an instant, as last season’s Kentucky team learned. With that in mind, Potter’s presence gives Kentucky added depth.
“Reece Potter, guys, is a big-time basketball player, and we’re really blessed to have Reece Potter here,” Pope said earlier this month during UK’s team media day. “In this time of (revenue) share and NIL being such a huge part of this, Reece Potter was a guy that said ‘You know what, I’m coming to be a part of Kentucky.’ He has given us so much. Like, he’s really special. He’s a big-time player. He’s going to have a great future in this game.”
Reece Potter bets on himself by joining Kentucky
Potter’s versatility as a big could distinguish him from his frontcourt teammates at UK.
“When he dribbled at a guard, he could throw that backdoor bounce pass on the dime and really do a great job of that. We’d get him in a dribble-handoff action, he was really good at that. He was able to actually keep the dribble and turn,” Salsman said. “... He’s taken all of that and blossomed into not only a great player, but an incredible young man. He’s done a great job of just continuing to work on his craft.”
The basketball traits Potter worked on at Miami seem to mesh with Pope’s style of play.
“We ran a more modern-style offense,” said Potter, whose RedHawks team ranked 26th in the nation last season in effective field goal percentage, just four spots behind UK.
“That’s kind of how they do it here. They want the five-out type of feel where bigs can do multiple things. They can shoot. They can pass. They can be able to put it on the floor, which is kind of how the game is evolving toward now.”
For Potter, the move from a defined role at Miami to an unknown one at UK carries risk. But as a player with professional aspirations, Potter is taking a leap of faith that his on-court skills will translate to playing time with the Cats.
“I’m just kind of betting on myself,” Potter said. “Every day here the practices are very tough. We got guys like Brandon Garrison and Malachi Moreno. We’re going to have JQ (Quaintance) back soon, so guys like that who are future lottery picks, future first-round picks, they’re all NBA players. So being able to go against that every single day in practice, it’s something that, hopefully, it’s going to help me build me up to be able to compete here and then compete further on.”
Whatever Potter’s role becomes, his decision to join Kentucky will push him to be a better player on the court while providing fulfillment off of it.
Few, if any, other transfer portal destinations would have given him that.
“Reece is one of those kids that grew up wearing blue and white dreaming of playing with the word Kentucky across your chest,” Salsman said. “And he’s always been somebody that doesn’t care what his name on the back of the jersey is.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
