Former Kentucky guard Travis Perry is back in the transfer portal
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- Former Kentucky basketball player Travis Perry is back in the NCAA transfer portal.
- Perry left UK last year as a transfer to join Chris Beard’s Ole Miss program.
- As a sophomore at Ole Miss, Perry averaged 5.3 points per game.
Travis Perry is back in the NCAA transfer portal.
After leaving UK basketball last year to transfer to Ole Miss, Perry is once again looking for a new college home. On Thursday afternoon, On3 reported that Perry is expected to enter the portal ahead of his junior season.
Perry — a former prep basketball star in the commonwealth who won the 2024 Kentucky Mr. Basketball award and that year’s Sweet 16 state championship with Lyon County — averaged 5.3 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game this past season at Ole Miss. Perry shot 34.3% from the field, 35.3% on 3-pointers and 88.0% from the free-throw line during his lone season at Ole Miss.
As a sophomore, Perry played in 35 games for Ole Miss, starting 16 and playing an average of 16.4 minutes per game.
As a freshman at Kentucky, Perry — who is still the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky boys high school basketball history — made 31 appearances and started four times for Mark Pope’s first UK squad.
Last year, the 6-foot-1 Perry was a surprise entrant in the transfer portal. He entered his name into the 2025 portal just before the deadline to do so.
“Just feel like that I’ve grown, I think as a person,” Perry told the Herald-Leader in March during the SEC Tournament. “Something that’s big for me (is) taking the adversity we’ve been through, taking the adversity I’ve been through and just continuing to play the game, continue to have fun in it, have the love of it. Just getting through it has been really good for me.”
While Perry’s decision to leave UK last year was a head-scratcher for some Kentucky fans, his landing spot made sense. Ole Miss was one of Perry’s final five options during his high school recruitment. Perry committed to Kentucky — which, at the time, was coached by John Calipari — in November 2023 over Alabama, Cincinnati, Ole Miss and Western Kentucky.
Ole Miss struggled with Perry during the 2025-26 season, going 15-20 overall and 4-14 in SEC regular season games. But the Rebels showed some fight at the end of the season by going on a surprise run to the SEC Tournament semifinals. Perry was instrumental in that surge. He started all of Ole Miss’ games in the conference tournament and recorded eight assists against just two turnovers in the event.
“We’ve been encouraging Travis from day one to initiate the contact, don’t run from it,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said during the SEC Tournament. “... Travis has got some nasty in him. It’s just kind of a deal where we’re trying to pull it out of him, slowly but surely.”
Without Perry on its roster, Kentucky was short on point guard depth this past season. Perry’s decision to transfer to Ole Miss, along with a late decommitment from high school recruit Acaden Lewis, meant UK had issues after junior guard Jaland Lowe was lost for the season in January due to a series of right shoulder injuries.
“We thought we were abundantly prepared at that position,” Pope said last month during his final radio show of the 2025-26 season.
