OXFORD —Travis Perry is known for his shooting.

He became a high school legend in Kentucky for scoring 5,381 points during his career at Lyon County High School in Eddyville.

A former Mr. Basketball in a state that worships the sport, Perry signed with Kentucky out of high school and had his moments as a freshman with the Wildcats. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound guard scored 2.7 points per game. He averaged 9.8 minutes per game, drawing four starts.

“I was very pleased with my freshman season at Kentucky and I felt like we had a great group of guys that I was able to learn a ton from and just transform my game,” Perry said Tuesday. “It is hard for any freshman coming in, especially for a freshman coming into the SEC at the best conference ever in college basketball. so I was very blessed to have that opportunity.”

Ultimately, Perry decided to enter the transfer portal. Ole Miss coach Chris Beard had recruited Perry as a high schooler, so the connection was easy.

“That was definitely very important for me,” Perry said. “The relationship that myself and my family have with him, I feel like, is really strong. Whenever I got the portal I wanted to go somewhere that I knew that I was trusted by the coach, but that also that I could trust them in the same way, and I feel that from the whole staff top to bottom.

“…He recruited me very hard and then whenever I got in the portal, it was more of the same, just talking through the things. The honesty was the most important thing for me, being honest about what I need to work on and honest about the vision here.”

If Perry is going to become the player he wants to be and have a career beyond the college level, he has to become a better ball-handler and facilitator. He has to improve defensively. He also wants to become more versatile.

“Travis and I share a vision for his game that he's much, much more than a shooter,” Beard said. “That he's a guy that can play multiple positions.”

"Being able to play both positions is something that's big for me,” Perry said,. (Beard) plays a lot of guards out there at the same time, so being able to play either guard spot and just impact winning at a high level is something that's at the top of that list.

“But also protecting the ball is something we've already been focusing on. The ball is very important. There's only one ball. There’s 10 guys out there, so there's only one ball. So making sure we protect that and then just having that grit on the defensive side of the ball is something that I'm really trying to value this summer as well.”

Even though he’s at Ole Miss, Perry’s connection to Kentucky will always remain a story line. He knows that. There’s no running from it. However, he doesn’t want to be defined by his high school career or his one season in Wildcat blue.

“It is definitely a difficult decision, I think, for anybody really to get in the portal,” Perry said. “But definitely the situation is difficult. But, it just felt like at the end of the day, you gotta make the best decision for yourself and your basketball career.

“You only get so much time to do it. You only get so much time to play basketball. So I felt like I just made the decision that myself and my family came to that was best for my basketball career. And I'm very excited about it.”