Mark Pope's message to Travis Perry: 'Get the shoulder ready.'

Mark Pope has officially been the head coach of Kentucky men’s basketball for only a couple of days now, but it wasn’t officially official until he spoke in front of the Big Blue Nation. Pope nailed the introductory press conference, and will now begin the process of filling out his team for the upcoming 2024-25 season.

One potential piece to the roster is high school commit Travis Perry, who is part of Kentucky’s incoming 2024 recruiting class that was brought in by former head coach John Calipari. At one point, that group featured six commits, but it has since been widdled down to three throughout the transition from Calipari to Pope.

Perry, who set every scoring record imaginable during his high school days at Lyon County and led the Lyons’ to its first-ever state championship win just last month, hadn’t publicly commented on Kentucky’s coaching change but has remained committed to the Wildcats nonetheless.

Until Sunday that is, when Perry showed up to Pope’s press conference and was given the star treatment with a seat on the main floor. Of Calipari’s six commitments, it always felt like Perry could be the one to stick around considering his roots in the Bluegrass. And while Perry, who signed with UK in November, wouldn’t definitively say he’s sticking with Kentucky, the four-star point guard implied that he’ll remain committed barring an unforeseen change.

“As of right now, I’m still signed,” Perry, who was rocking a Kentucky shirt, told reporters after Pope’s press conference. “Obviously, haven’t gotten to really sit down with Coach Pope. But that’s something I wanna do in the future… Hopefully get up here sometime again in the future to have a conversation with him and see where things go from there.

“I don’t want to put a timeline on it,” Perry said. “It’s obviously a busy time for him, don’t want to rush him or anything like that. Just take it as it goes, get to have the conversations with him that are important, get to sit down with him, see what the plan is, see what he’s thinking and then we’ll decide what we’re thinking but today shows why Big Blue Nation is what it is. It’s pretty incredible to have a turnout like this.”

At one point, when Pope was asked about in-state recruiting, he mentioned Perry by name and asked him to stand up for the fans, something Perry admitted he was not expecting. Rupp Arena quickly erupted as Perry was showered with cheers.

“There is a good chance he will not jump into the portal,” Pope jokingly said of Perry.

That moment certainly can’t hurt Pope’s recruiting pitch. It also doesn’t hurt that the 6-foot-2 Perry plays a style of basketball that meshes well with Pope’s scheme: shoot lots of threes and push the pace.

Perry and Pope had already connected prior to Sunday, too. The new head coach FaceTimed Perry, who said Pope was screaming (in a good way) with energy throughout the entire call.

“Initially just showing how excited he was about the job,” Perry said of the conversation he had with Pope. “Wanted to call me pretty early and then he just told me get the shoulder ready, be ready to play a fun brand of basketball, shoot a lot of threes, and win a lot of games.”

Anything can happen, but it sure sounds like Perry will be sticking around for the start of the Pope era in Lexington.