Mark Pope will roll out four Bluegrass natives on next season’s Kentucky men’s basketball team. Of course, that was the expectation from the moment the 2024-25 season ended, but for about two weeks, there were “only” three in-state products. Travis Perry surprisingly entered his name into the transfer portal on April 22 and found himself at Ole Miss by May 4.
But less than 24 hours after Perry’s commitment to the Rebels, Reece Potter was here to save the day for members of the Big Blue Nation who love seeing one of their own running up and down the Rupp Arena hardwood. And to boot, Potter is a Lexington native — the second scholarship player on a Kentucky MBB roster since Cameron Mills (Paul Laurence Dunbar) in the late 1990s (the other is actually a future teammate of Potter’s). Potter was productive and successful at Lexington Catholic before starting his college career at Miami (OH).
But fate has brought him back home. An opportunity to play for his childhood team was understandably too much to pass up.
“I’ve heard stories about how special it is to put on the Kentucky jersey,” Potter recently told Jacob Polacheck of KSR+. “It kind of recruited itself. When (Pope) asked me to be a part of it, it didn’t take me long to call him and text him to tell him that this is what I want to do.”
But as we know, Potter isn’t the only Kentucky-born player suiting up for the Wildcats in 2025-26. He’ll be joined by a pair of incoming freshmen, Jasper Johnson (Lexington) and Malachi Moreno (Georgetown), two former opponents of his from back in the day. The same goes for returning wing Trent Noah (Harlan), who was on the same AAU team as Potter in high school.
It’s not often we see four homegrown products on the same Kentucky team. Walk-ons have helped line the roster with Bluegrass natives over the years, but when it comes to scholarship pieces, having over 30 percent of the roster from the state is rare. John Calipari had teams with four Kentucky products on them during his time as head coach, but not with all of them on scholarship.
Pope has not been shy about wanting to bring in guys who play for the name on the front of the jersey. There’s no better place to find them than his own backyard.
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