LEXINGTON — A recent post from the Kentucky basketball managers touted the excellence of freshman guard Travis Perry.
“Hey #BBN, Kentucky’s own @Travis_Perry11 has been on (fire),” the UK managers’ account wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, using three fire emojis. “He has made 100/100 Free Throws in back to back days, while also shooting 90% from 3.”
The post was later deleted. But screengrabs live on.
Perry, the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school basketball history, met with reporters Thursday. He said he was aware of the since-deleted post, admitting he “saw it” before it disappeared.
The numbers, he acknowledged, were accurate.
Actually, they didn’t go far enough.
“We had to hit 100 free throws and 100 3s. So, yeah, I had three days in a row I got 100 out of 100 free throws.”
As he’s closing in on perfection from the free-throw line, Perry compared it to a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. It’s all quiet in the gym.
“The guy that’s rebounding for me, he does a great job. I think he’s almost more focused than I am,” Perry said. “Like, I’ll shoot it and I’ll look at him a little bit. He’ll get the ball and twist it and make sure that the seams are perfect. He’ll bounce it back and I’ll catch it and it’ll be perfect. If I have close to a miss but it still goes in, we’ll take a breath — make sure I take a breath — and throw it back to me.
“He’s really locked in about it. So it’s great to see that those guys are really taking it as seriously as you are.”
“Not many” of the successful attempts even grace the rim, Perry said with a smile, alluding to the ball swishing through the basket with mind-numbing regularity.
Make no mistake: No one is more aware of his make-or-miss percentage than Perry.
“I’m definitely counting ’em. I’m a guy that has to count,” he said. “If I’m shooting for practice, shooting in a workout, I have to count them all in my head, just to know like, ‘Can’t let that number (you make) start slipping.’ Like if you miss a couple in a row, you gotta make three or four in a row. So it’s kind of like a constant battle with yourself which is really, really fun, honestly.”
Perry said there’s not one key to his spectacular efficiency.
Every shot is different.
“If you have a couple of shots in a row that maybe you make ’em, but they’re a little bit too far right and they’re not perfectly down the middle, you might tweak a couple things there,” he said. “But. really, I’ve done so many reps at the free-throw line, 3-point line, it’s just trying to do the same thing every time — I’m trying to almost be mindless about it. I like to allow myself maybe one shot thought, but that’s about it.
“If you started getting two, three, four shot thoughts every time, you’re more thinking than you are shooting. So I like to kind of just work with one thought, at most.”
