Travis Perry grades his first career start at Kentucky

Mark Pope sat down with Travis Perry late Friday night ahead of Kentucky’s matchup at Texas to give him advice before his first career start as a Wildcat. The gist was about what you’d expect for a kid who came in as a back-of-rotation piece on a long-term development plan, taking on the biggest opportunity of his life.

His coach told him to trust his abilities and know he’s wearing this uniform for a reason. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.

“Just instilling confidence in me, sending me clips — showing me the good clips I’ve had all year on offense and defense,” Perry said of the conversation. “He was just showing me that I’ve done it against the highest level already in the SEC and could continue to do it at that level. He was reiterating the confidence he has in me to play that role.”

Perry talked with his dad beforehand and the magnitude of the moment hit them together as a family. After so many years shattering records at the high school level in Kentucky, he got his shot to lead the in-state program in a hostile SEC road environment.

The focus was on keeping the main thing the main thing, preparing the same way for this one as he had all season long, but that doesn’t minimize just how cool it was to hear his name called over the loudspeaker as the starting point guard at the University of Kentucky.

“Obviously, it’s a pretty special moment. For a Kentucky kid like me to start in a game like that, that’s something you dream of,” Perry told KSR. “Talking to my dad about it was pretty cool, but it was still about keeping the focus the same and trying to win a basketball game, doing whatever I could in the minutes I was given to make the most for our team and doing it with the guys we had. There was definitely some excitement, a little bit of nerves there.”

Perry would finish with six points on 2-8 shooting overall and 2-5 from three with three assists, two rebounds and one steal — although he did add three turnovers, including a crucial one with 2:32 to go leading to a foul and free throws the other way to put Texas up.

Like all kids making their first career starts, there were good moments and moments he’d like to have back. That’s all part of the learning experience, though, one he’s grateful to have earned in Austin.

“It was pretty good. I mean, I hadn’t played that many minutes all year, so obviously there were a couple of stints I might have gotten winded or something. Aside from down the stretch — we had a couple of plays down the stretch I wish we could have back — but I felt like we played a good game,” Perry said. “Felt like we had good energy all game, that’s something that has been important for us, having energy all game. Felt like we had good energy on the floor and on the bench, played a good game overall. We just let it slip away in the end.”

With opportunity comes responsibility, though, Perry holding himself accountable for some of the mistakes that helped contribute to the loss down the stretch. Fifth-year senior Kerr Kriisa stepped up afterward, as well, telling the Wildcats they simply had to be better than what they showed in those last four minutes.

That’s the difference between wins and losses in March, and the team knows that. Being hard on the players now will only make them tougher in win-or-go-home situations next month.

Perry wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Those are inexcusable plays. Those are plays that we’ve made many, many times that we just messed up in that certain instance. I think Kerr did a great job after the game just reiterating to us that we’ve got to be better than that, but at the same time, it’s one game,” Perry said. “It’s just one basketball game, we just have to clean it up. We’ve done a great job kind of not looking past that and focusing on what went wrong — maybe it was a miscommunication error, cleaning up the little things.

“Something we learned from it is in tight basketball games like that, whenever it gets to March Madness, the biggest things are the little things.”

Short-term setback for a major long-term comeback — hopefully.