Reece Potter continues to develop during UK basketball redshirt season
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK basketball coach Mark Pope talks about junior forward Reece Potter.
- Potter is a former local high school basketball star who is redshirting this season at UK.
- Previously, Potter spent two seasons playing at Miami (Ohio).
As Kentucky basketball gears up for the start of SEC play in the new year, we know at least one Wildcat isn’t expected to factor into the equation for Mark Pope’s team.
In early November, Pope announced that junior Reece Potter intends to redshirt this season.
Potter — a 7-foot-1 forward who previously was a local prep star at Lexington Catholic — spent his first two college seasons at Miami (Ohio) before transferring home to UK last offseason. He played in 56 games during his two seasons with the RedHawks, averaging 6.3 points and 3.4 rebounds in 15.7 minutes per game while shooting 45.4% from the field and 39.8% from 3-point range.
In addition to not playing in any of UK’s regular season games so far, Potter also didn’t play in either of the team’s two preseason exhibitions. The only glimpse of Potter has been the four minutes he played during UK’s annual Blue-White Game in October.
How has Potter been getting on behind the scenes?
“He’s a really good basketball player,” Pope said earlier this month. “There’s some things that he does better than our other guys. He’s a high-IQ guy. He’s got a great motor. He’s got some physicality. He’s probably the best guy on our team at finishing with one shoulder to the rim.”
While Potter was far from Kentucky’s top transfer addition last offseason, his decision to return to Lexington remains a nice homecoming story. Potter’s standout high school career at LexCath included being named the 11th Region’s player of the year as a senior during the 2022-23 campaign. That same season, the Herald-Leader named Potter the 2023 Lexington Player of the Year after he averaged 17.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game.
“I’m a big Reece Potter fan,” said Pope, who noted that Potter has been dealing with a “chronic health issue” that he’s in “long-term recovery” from.
A UK spokesperson declined to provide further detail on Potter’s health issue. Potter has been on the UK bench for all the team’s games.
Assuming Potter does redshirt this season, he would have two more seasons of NCAA eligibility left.
Whenever Potter does appear in a game for UK, he will become the 88th Kentucky basketball player from Lexington. Potter would also become the first recruited, scholarship player from Lexington to play for the program in the 21st century. (Current freshman guard Jasper Johnson is a Lexington native who lists the city as his hometown, but he played high school basketball at Woodford County in Versailles before transferring out of state.)
Johnson and Potter represent two of the four recruited, scholarship players from the commonwealth on Kentucky’s roster this season, along with freshman center Malachi Moreno and sophomore forward Trent Noah. It’s the first time in two decades that a UK squad features four recruited, scholarship players from Kentucky.
Potter also isn’t the only UK player who may redshirt this season. A redshirt season is still on the table for freshman forward Braydon Hawthorne, who also hasn’t played for the Cats this campaign.
Hawthorne was a late-rising recruit in last year’s high school class, eventually finishing as a four-star prospect. The 6-foot-8 Hawthorne is viewed as a player with significant long-term upside, and Pope has previously compared him to UK legend Tayshaun Prince.
“He’s getting so much better every day,” Pope said of Hawthorne. “There’s certainly space where he could help us. You never know how guys are going to be when the lights are on and when they’re in limited minutes and all the things. Also in college basketball right now, it’s really expensive to burn a year, too... I want to make sure that we take care of him. He’s a special talent. He’s got a huge future, so we got to do it right.”
