Mark Pope has just assured that UK fans will see something rare in 2025-26
We are roughly six months from the start of the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season. Nevertheless, Mark Pope has already assured that Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball fans will experience something rare in the coming year — and that’s not referring to the impending season’s shockingly early UK-Louisville game. For the basketball community in Fayette County, the announcement Monday by former Lexington Catholic boys hoops standout Reece Potter that he will be transferring from Miami (Ohio) to play for the University of Kentucky in 2025-26 was a moment of importance. While there have been multiple walk-ons from Lexington on Kentucky rosters in the 2000s, do you know how unusual it has recently been for the Wildcats to have a recruited, scholarship player from our city? Potter will be the first such player from Lexington to play for UK in the 21st century.
How big a role the 7-foot-1, 215-pound Potter will have next season on what looks to be a stacked Kentucky front line is uncertain. This past year, while coming off the bench for a good Miami (25-9) team, Potter averaged 6.5 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 36.7 percent on 3-point attempts.
At Kentucky, the willowy big man, a junior-to-be, might benefit from a developmental redshirt season. In the meantime, it’s stunning how long Lexington has gone without sending a scholarship men’s basketball player to UK. UK recruiting and Lexington Over the past 40 years, the player from Lexington who had the biggest impact on UK men’s basketball was former Paul Laurence Dunbar star Cameron Mills. Yet Mills, one of the heroes of Kentucky’s 1997 (national runner-up) and 1998 (national champion) NCAA Tournament runs, began his UK career as a walk-on.
Amazingly, the last player from Lexington who signed with Kentucky out of high school was Henry Clay point guard Sean Sutton in the 1987 recruiting class. As the son of then-UK coach Eddie Sutton, Sean wasn’t really “from” Lexington. He moved here with his family prior to his junior season (1985-86) of high school after his dad was named Kentucky head man. Sean Sutton then played only two seasons at UK before transferring after his father stepped down as Wildcats coach. To find a player who 1.) grew up in Lexington; 2.) signed with Kentucky prior to playing for another college; and 3.) finished his college career playing for UK, one must go all the way back to Melvin Turpin — who signed with the Cats in 1980, a whopping 45 years ago. Players UK should have signed While there haven’t been many, there have been players produced in Lexington in the past four-and-a-half decades who were good enough to play for Kentucky. There have been extenuating circumstances in some instances, but UK has not always done a stellar job of evaluating the talent in its own city. UK should have recruited Lexington Catholic star David Graves in the class of 1998. It didn’t, and Graves, a 6-6 swingman, went on to become a four-year starter and score 1,746 career points playing for Notre Dame.
Kentucky should have been all-in on Bryan Station guard Jaron Brown in the class of 1998. Brown committed to Rick Pitino and UK as a high school junior, but after Tubby Smith replaced Pitino as top Cat in 1997, the paths of Kentucky and Brown diverged. Ending up at Pittsburgh, the 6-4, 229-pound Brown went on to score 1,258 points and grab 651 rebounds while playing for Pitt teams that went 88-16 over his final three seasons. The Wildcats should have prioritized Bryan Station guard Shelvin Mack in the class of 2008. Amid another UK coaching change, from Smith to Billy Gillispie, Kentucky was late to the party. Brad Stevens and Butler swooped in early and got Mack. The ex-Bryan Station star went on to score 1,527 career points in a three-year college career while leading Butler to back-to-back NCAA title game appearances in 2010 and 2011. In the 2017 recruiting cycle, Kentucky asked Paul Laurence Dunbar star guard Taveion Hollingsworth to wait until the spring signing period to commit. Hollingsworth instead signed with Western Kentucky in the fall. UK then spent the spring of that 2017 recruiting cycle scouring the nation looking for a guard. The Wildcats eventually landed on Californian Jemarl Baker — who would score 64 total points in his two-year stint (one a medical redshirt season) in the Kentucky uniform.
