Les Nicholson Photo
Lyon County guard Travis Perry has a busy weekend planned.
He will play for the Kentucky junior all-stars in a scrimmage Saturday against the Kentucky senior team that will play Indiana June. 9 and 10. On Sunday he will play for Kentucky against the Indiana junior all-star team.
Once that all-star game against Indiana ends, he’ll take a flight to New York to join other players headed to the Adidas Eurocamp in Italy June 8-15. Perry has never been out of the country but already had a passport because his family had contemplated a trip to the Bahamas last year before eventually deciding not to go.
One of Perry’s teammates in Italy will be AAU teammate Cooper Koch, an Iowa commit.
“Adidas takes the best players from the (AAU) circuit I am on and I was one of those players selected to go to Italy,” said Perry. “I think there are 14 of us going over to Italy for games and a minicamp.”
The team will have a brief minicamp in New York before flying to Venice, playing games in Treviso and then sightseeing in Rome before returning to the U.S.
“The basketball should be good. I know we will play a few games and will also have a lot of training and developmental stuff. It should be really good for me,” Perry, the state’s all-time leading scorer, said. “It’s kind of like the trip of a lifetime with basketball and great sightseeing. It’s the kind of experience you obviously don’t get every day.”
College coaches can contact players while they are in Italy but cannot travel to watch games in Italy.
“My recruiting has been pretty steady. I am still just taking some visits, building relationships and seeing what I like best,” Perry said. “I know it is getting closer to time to either cutting my list or making a (college) decision. I just have to figure out what things are most important to me.”
The 6-2 Perry is a top 100 prospect in his recruiting class with offers from Kentucky, Michigan, Purdue, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Ole Miss, Bradley, Cincinnati, Creighton, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Western Kentucky, Ohio State, Nebraska, New Orleans, Stanford and Wake Forest.
As eager as he is to make the trip to Italy, he was not about to miss the junior all-star weekend and a chance to play against Indiana as well as the Kentucky senior all-star team.
“I am a competitor and want to win against the state of Indiana. Kentucky and Indiana are two states known for basketball,” Perry said. “I have been looking forward to that and also competing against guys in the state that I don’t normally get to play with or against.”
A year from now Perry could be Kentucky’s Mr. Basketball wearing the No. 1 jersey against Indiana. He admits being Mr. Basketball is something he’s thought about since he started playing high school basketball.
“I’ve always thought it would be cool to be Mr. Basketball but what I really want to do is get a state championship,” he said. “That’s the main thing. Mr. Basketball is the highest honor a player can receive and something I would definitely be grateful for. But really winning a state championship is what I think about the most.”
