Travis Not Changing Approach on Doorstep of Homecoming
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – From the moment he committed to spend his final college season at Kentucky, Reid Travis has heard about the Final Four. College basketball’s headline event is being played in his hometown on Minneapolis, so that’s only natural.
Now, Travis is just one win away from going home. Just don’t expect him to approach the game that could get him there any differently on Sunday.
“I’m trying to just take the preparation the same way, just approach it like any other game,” Travis said. “I feel like if you look at it too much as far as trying to go home and kind of put all that on it, that’s just too much weight on it.”
It’s exactly that kind of maturity that has been so valuable to this UK team. Travis’s strength, steadiness and indefatigable work ethic have been a constant source of inspiration as the Wildcats have weathered the inevitable ups and downs of a college basketball season. Particularly one in which 18- and 19-year-old freshman are so heavily relied on.
We celebrated last night but we locked back in today. We’ve got bigger goals. #Elite8 | #MarchMadness | #DreamBIG pic.twitter.com/dNeVlZZmBz
— Kentucky Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) March 31, 2019
“It’s great to have a veteran like Reid on the team, someone that we can look up to,” Tyler Herro said. “Obviously he’s been through a lot. So whenever we need the advice or anything like that, we can go to him. … Someone like that, we can just follow him.”
The irony isn’t lost on Travis that he’s spending one season at the school where talented younger players often do the same, though not because they exhaust their eligibility. In fact, that fact is part of the reason why he came to Kentucky after graduating from Stanford in the first place.
“Obviously, I’m a different kind of one-and-done as far as I already had four years in college and coming here for my fifth year,” Travis said. “I felt like it was the best spot for me as far as coaches and the players that were already established here. So it’s a great spot, and I feel like it’s done everything that I needed it to do.”
Travis has hardly been passive in that process.
As Travis looked to expand his game, the coach he chose to play for told him he needed to lose 20 pounds from his rock-solid 260-plus-pound frame. So Travis transformed his diet, worked hard and got it done. Then, after Travis got down to 242, Calipari asked him to lose another five pounds. Travis, realizing his body fat already stood at four percent, was honest in his response.
“I looked at him and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ ” Travis said.
“I went, ‘Four percent? You would have to give up a kidney,’ ” John Calipari said.
That’s been about the only thing Travis hasn’t been willing to do this season. His role has vacillated from go-to scorer to defensive stopper to coming off the bench in returning from injury depending on what his team has needed, with Travis most recently taking only two shots in 35 minutes against Houston, but grabbing 11 rebounds. Kentucky won, so you would have had no way of knowing Travis’s stats based on the way he celebrated in the wake of Herro and PJ Washington’s heroics.
“I’ve always been about the team,” Travis said. “That’s kind of always been my approach, is that at the end of the day we want to win and we win together. You understand, I think, here the biggest part is that you’re going to have your opportunities given certain games different nights and that’s a big part of what Coach preaches.”
It’s impossible to know what Sunday will hold for Travis as UK chases that Final Four berth against Auburn. What’s guaranteed is Travis will pour everything he’s got into the pursuit.
“He got 11 rebounds and they were tough, fought,” Calipari said. “He only took two shots and never said a word. He was happy as heck. Happy as heck. That’s what it means to play here. Now, my hope is he has 20 tomorrow. But if he gets 20 rebounds, I’ll be just as happy. And you know what, so will he.”
