Tennessee basketball has expressed interest in Kentucky shooting guard Travis Perry, On3’s Joe Tipton reported on Thursday morning.
The Vols are not alone in expressing interest in Perry since he entered the transfer portal earlier this week. They join a group that includes Arkansas, Ole Miss, Maryland, Vanderbilt, Louisville, Iowa, Georgia, Missouri, LSU and South Carolina with interest in Perry.
Perry played in 31 games and started four games for Kentucky in his freshman season, averaging 2.7 points and 0.8 rebounds in 9.8 minutes per game. The 6-foot-1 guard made 18-of-56 (32.1%) of his three-point attempts in his freshman season with the Wildcats.
The Eddyville, Kentucky native mostly played point guard for the Wildcats last season but also has the ability to play off of the ball.
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Tennessee basketball currently has three scholarships to work with in the transfer portal. They’ve landed Maryland point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie as well as Vanderbilt power forward Jaylen Carey in the portal to date. Rick Barnes and his staff also landed five-star prep wing Nate Ament alongside three other high school recruits.
The Vols are badly in need of guards, particularly shooting guards, at this point in time. Tennessee has missed out on three different shooting guard targets in Virginia’s Isaac McKneely, Maryland’s Rodney Rice and Oklahoma’s Miles Duke. The first two visited Tennessee while Duke cancelled a visit to Tennessee after committing to Texas A&M.
Tennessee needs to add a starting shooting guard, and Perry wouldn’t be that. The Vols are targeting five-star combo guard Darius Adams for that role after he de-committed from UConn over the weekend. Adams considered Tennessee originally in his recruitment before signing with the Huskies.
But Tennessee needs to add two more guards to its roster and Perry could plausibly be the second guard, serving as Gillespie’s backup and also playing off the ball as a two-guard. Things appear to be very early in the process with Tennessee and Perry, and there’s no guarantee the early interest goes anywhere.
