‘Great and crazy.’ Reece Potter reflects on redshirt season with UK basketball
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UK junior forward Reece Potter is returning to the Wildcats for the 2026-27 season.
- Potter redshirted the 2025-26 season after transferring to Kentucky from Miami (Ohio).
- Prior to his college career, Potter was a standout at Lexington Catholic High School.
Reece Potter’s basketball homecoming in Central Kentucky has been delayed.
A former prep basketball star at Lexington Catholic who began his college career by playing two seasons at Miami (Ohio), Potter made the decision during the 2025 offseason to return home and transfer to Kentucky.
But there were hardly any glimpses of Potter in UK blue and white during the 2025-26 season. The four minutes Potter logged for the Cats in the intrasquad Blue-White scrimmage in October were the only ones he played all season.
Mark Pope and company made an early call to redshirt Potter for the 2025-26 season and stuck to it.
A 7-foot-1 junior forward, Potter still has two years of college eligibility left. This fall, Potter will finally get the chance to suit up for his hometown Cats as a redshirt junior, and with a year of experience inside the UK basketball bubble under his belt.
“It’s been a journey this year, it’s been a long year for sure,” Potter told the Herald-Leader in March from Kentucky’s locker room at the NCAA Tournament in St. Louis. “... Working on things that I think I struggled with the last two years has been my main goal and main concern.”
Potter was viewed as a depth piece with local roots when he committed to Kentucky last offseason.
During the 2024-25 season, Potter averaged 6.5 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.2 assists in 17.1 minutes per game while coming off the bench at Miami (Ohio). He possesses distance shooting skill as well, having connected on 36.7% of his 3-pointers as a college sophomore. As a freshman in the 2023-24 campaign, Potter appeared in 26 total games with 11 starts, logging per-game averages of 6.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 14.2 minutes. He made 45.5% of his 3s as a college newcomer.
Potter is expected to be one of at least four players on the 2026-27 Kentucky team with prep basketball ties to the commonwealth. The others are rising senior guard Jerone Morton (George Rogers Clark), rising junior forward Trent Noah (Harlan County) and rising sophomore center Malachi Moreno (Great Crossing), who will return to UK if he withdraws from the NBA draft.
This is expected to be the second-straight campaign in which Kentucky rosters at least four recruited, scholarship players from the commonwealth.
But as one of only 12 players currently in place for next season’s team, Potter is also in line to potentially get legit playing time for the Cats later this year.
Reece Potter talks lessons learned during UK redshirt season
When given the opportunities to do so, Pope has praised Potter’s basketball skill and commitment to the Cats.
“Reece Potter, guys, is a big-time basketball player, and we’re really blessed to have Reece Potter here,” Pope said in October 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.”
“He’s a really good basketball player,” Pope said of Potter in December. “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 making those December comments, Pope also said Potter was dealing with a “chronic health issue” that the Lexington native was in “long-term recovery from.”
When asked in March about that health issue, Potter didn’t go into specifics. He described it as a “little sickness” that lasted for about a month.
“Nothing serious. It was just something earlier in the year that we had to just get over the hump with,” Potter said. “It took me a little bit of time to get over it, but after that now I’m good.”
Once that health issue was in the rearview mirror, Potter said he was able to sharpen his skills as a result of practicing against Kentucky’s other frontcourt players.
“Going against great bigs like Malachi Moreno and BG (Brandon Garrison) every day, and then guys like Mo (Dioubate), being able to go against them,” Potter said. “I get to see that firsthand every day. So, being able to go against them has made me better throughout the year.”
The biggest lesson Potter took from logging countless hours against that caliber of player in practice, he said, was that “you can’t take plays off.”
“If you take a play off, those guys will go and dunk on you, or go grab a rebound, or do something crucial that you can’t have,” Potter said. “That’s been the most important (thing), not being able to take a play off and just play with as much energy as possible.”
Potter also cited the strides he’s made in the weight room following a full season in Kentucky’s strength and conditioning program.
“When you’re battling bigs down there, you’ve got to be able to fend them off and grab the rebound, finish through them,” Potter said. “So that’s been the main difference (I’m) working on this year.”
As Potter redshirted the 2025-26 season at Kentucky, his former program stole plenty of national college basketball headlines.
Miami (Ohio) completed an undefeated 31-0 regular season and qualified for the NCAA Tournament as an at-large selection. The RedHawks defeated SMU in a play-in game for their first March Madness win since 1999.
“It was actually super fun watching them. Those are the same plays I remember from the last two years,” Potter said. “So I’m like ‘Ah, you’re supposed to do this. You’re supposed to do this.’ It’s kind of hard to watch the games because I’m still yelling because those are my boys, and I’m going to root for them no matter what.”
What can Reece Potter bring to Kentucky basketball next season?
Once Potter appears in a game for Kentucky, he will become the 88th UK basketball player from Lexington. He would also become the first recruited scholarship player from the city to play for the Cats in the 21st century.
Recent UK players have come close to claiming this honor. Former Kentucky guard Jasper Johnson — who transferred this offseason from UK to Oregon — is a Lexington native who lists the city as his hometown, but he played high school basketball at Woodford County in Versailles before also making prep stops in Missouri and Georgia.
One of Kentucky’s offseason additions this spring is Morton, a junior guard who previously played at Morehead State and Washington State. Morton also has listed Lexington as his hometown, but he was a prep basketball star at George Rogers Clark in Winchester.
Potter’s return home for the latest chapter in his college career has come with practical benefits. While he doesn’t still live with his parents, Potter is able to frequently spend time with his family and friends. He’s also been able to return to Lexington Catholic to watch his former high school team in action.
By all accounts, Potter enjoyed his redshirt year at Kentucky.
On April 15, UK announced Potter would be returning for next season, which will afford him the opportunity to finally take the floor for the Cats.
“Growing up, like I knew how insane it was going to be,” Potter said about his UK basketball experience so far. “But I didn’t really know how great and crazy this would be.”
