The New Old Guy: Travis Brings Unique Perspective, Approach
“This isn’t for everybody.”
If you’ve heard John Calipari say it once, you’ve heard it 1,000 times.
Though Reid Travis – a graduate transfer who spent the last four seasons at Stanford – is far from the typical Coach Cal recruit, he was no exception. He heard all about the competition he would face every day, all about the expectations that come with playing at UK and, especially, all about how his new coaching staff would push him.
Travis wasn’t just unafraid of all that. It was the very reason he came to Lexington.
“That’s kind of the fact that drew to me to Cal, is he was so honest with me,” Travis said.
Calipari didn’t stroke Travis’s ego and tell the Minneapolis native how impressed he was with him averaging 18.5 points and 8.3 rebounds for the Cardinal en route to earning back-to-back All-Pac 12 selections in 2016-17 and 2017-18. That worked out well, because Travis wasn’t interested in staying that same player.
“He really told me all these things that I needed to work on,” Travis said. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear. At the end of the day, there’s no hard feelings or anything like that. I want to be the best basketball player I can be.”
All that’s led to Travis landing at Kentucky for his lone remaining season of collegiate eligibility.
He is not the first graduate transfer to play for Calipari, but Julius Mays’ 2012-13 season likely isn’t the closest comparison for Travis in 2018-19. Instead, it might be Patrick Patterson in 2009-10.
Patterson, as UK fans will remember well, had an outstanding first two years of his college career under Billy Gillispie. Not only are his stats across those two seasons – averages of 17.3 points and 8.6 rebounds – eerily similar to Travis’s over the last two years at Stanford, Patterson and Travis each posted them playing as undersized back-to-the-basket fives.
Then, as a junior, Patterson bypassed the NBA Draft to return to play on a brand-new team under Coach Cal, knowing he would be challenged to expand his game. Now, Travis is undertaking the very same challenge.
“Cal’s very big on being versatile and being able to do multiple things on the court,” Travis said. “If a guy’s going to play off you, you need to be able to hit that shot. Be able to catch lobs, block shots. You want to be the most complete player that you can be. That comes from just working on those skills. I think it’s similar to my situation where I have played most of my college basketball games back to the basket. I started to expand my range last year, taking more 3s. It’s definitely a work in progress doing that, but I think just encouragement from him, I really do see a similarity to that situation that Patrick was in.”
Patterson would excel, adding versatility and a 3-point shot that has served him well as he prepares for his ninth NBA season. Along the way, UK won 35 games, swept the Southeastern Conference regular-season and tournament championships, and advanced to the Elite Eight. Travis will be looking to do many of the same things this year, plus win a few more NCAA Tournament games.
“He’s a guy that I think I see a lot of the things that I do similar to what he does,” Travis said. “That’s a guy that I’ve watched on film before and I really think that he’s found a great niche in the NBA of kind of carving out his space. It’s definitely somebody I like to watch.”
Where Travis differs slightly from Patterson is that he is having to find his way around the UK campus just like his fellow newcomers, though they are all at least three years his junior. Not surprisingly considering his educational background – a degree in Science, Technology and Society from Stanford is nothing to sneeze at – Travis is catching on quickly.
“It’s an interesting experience,” Travis said. “I’ve been in a newcomer role and I’ve been in a veteran role, but I’ve never done both at the same time. For me, it’s kind of figuring out what situations I’m in when I need to insert my leadership, when I kind of need to defer to certain guys that have been here already – the sophomores – and ask them questions about how things are done in the program and just be willing to do that.”
Travis might be behind the likes of PJ Washington, Quade Green and Nick Richards in that it’s his first year in Calipari’s system, but he’s well ahead of almost everyone in college basketball in terms of on-court experience. Already, on UK’s four-game Big Blue Bahamas Tour, that has paid dividends.
“This is a funny thing, because what he does do is coach on the floor because he knows more,” Calipari said. “And some of the things that we did down in the Bahamas defensively we did some different kind of scheming and he was the one that got it and would talk people through. So there were things that we did that I know coaches watched and said, ‘How in the world are they doing that?’ Well, it was because you had a veteran out there that could talk the other guys through it.”
It’s impressive that Travis was able to do that as he was playing basically a new personal brand of basketball. That came with fits and starts, as Travis began the trip with a 2-for-9 shooting performance before posting 19 points and 15 rebounds in the last of four games.
“For me, it was a blessing that we were able to play four games, get it on film for me to really learn about myself and just being able to build off that and put that it into my workouts,” Travis said. “For me, it was great just to learn about myself. Like I said, the biggest thing for me is just being humble. Whether I’m playing well or not, I’m going to continue to put the work in because I know that it’s going to click eventually and then I’m going to be the player that I want to be if I keep doing that.”
The key for Travis is patience.
“I’m still fresh in that journey,” Travis said. “I think anytime you’re trying to add things to your game or trying to become a different type of player, it takes months and sometimes even takes years to get to where you want to be.”
