Transfer OL sets visit to Kentucky while another has made contact with the Cats
Recruitment is heating up for the Kentucky transfer target.
Jacksonville State offensive tackle Xavier Bausley (6-foot-5, 315) is focused on three schools: Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Kentucky. He is scheduled to visit the Panthers Jan. 3–4, the Mountaineers Jan. 4–5, and the Wildcats Jan. 6–7. A decision would be expected soon thereafter. The West Virginia native has three years to play three seasons.
Bausley entered the transfer portal on December 20 and quickly received offers from the likes of Texas A&M, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Arizona State, UCF and California. The lineman red-shirted his first season on campus. As a redshirt freshman, he started all 12 games in which he appeared at right tackle. The Athletics designated him a second-team member of the All-Freshman team. In 349 pass-blocking snaps, TruMedia credited him with 13 pressures and 1 sack allowed. There were 113 players with 300 pass-blocking snaps or more in college football to allow one sack or fewer.
For most fans, when the Wildcats 2023–24 schedule was released, a Dec. 29 date with Illinois State, the final game before the start of SEC play was not a game scheduled. For Kentucky guard Antonio Reeves, it certainly was.
Reeves spent his first three college seasons in Normal, Illinois, playing for the Illinois State Redbirds, a place he improved each year.
“The first year, having the scoring ability that I had, definitely took notice, as did just being an all-around player,” Reeves said of his time at Illinois State. “How I improved from sophomore year to junior year was definitely a big improvement.”
As a freshman during the 2019-20 season, he averaged 7.2 points per game, shot 31.4 percent from three and averaged 2.5 rebounds; as a sophomore, he averaged 12.4 points per game, shot 30.6 percent from three and averaged 3.3 rebounds; and as a junior, he earned second-team All-Missouri Conference team honors by averaging 20.1 points per game, shooting 39.0 percent from three and averaging 3.5 rebounds.
His play at Illinois State, tearing up Missouri Valley Conference competition, helped him move up to the next level of college basketball as he transferred to Kentucky ahead of the 2022–23 season, with other power conference teams such as Oregon, Nebraska, Xavier and DePaul offering out of the portal.
“After my sophomore year, I declared for the draft to test the waters and I ended up going out to Miami to work out with pro trainers and things like that and it really just made my game skyrocket to another level,” Reeves said. “My junior year, I went ballistic. I definitely had a great season that year and that’s why I’m here now.”
His success came under head coach Dan Muller, who was let go 26 games into Reeves’ junior season at Illinois State.
Only four players (Kendall Lewis, Nik Stadelman, Harouna Sissoko and Ryan Schmitt) he played with in Normal will travel to Rupp Arena to take on the Cats on Friday and the entire coaching staff led by second-year head coach Ryan Pedon is new.
“I talk to a couple of old teammates,” Reeves said. “Just three or four of them are playing on the team right now, but one or two of them I still communicate with.”
“I’ve been watching him, keeping up with his stats at Kentucky, because I like to see him do well,” Reeves’ old teammate Kendall Lewis, who is still with the Redbirds, told The Pantagraph’s Randy Reinhardt. “I don’t like to see him do well next game. I can tell you that right now.
“A lot of respect out of Tone [Reevs]. “He’s definitely a good player. I know I kind of got the inside scoop on him a little bit, too. I’ll definitely use what I know of his history when we guard him out there. But it’s not just him, of course. They’ve got a bunch of skilled pieces.”
Reeves was enrolled in classes back at Illinois State over the summer as he weighed a potential summer graduation that would’ve allowed him to become immediately eligible for the transfer portal. However, he opted to return to Kentucky, where through 11 games, he has been the Wildcats’ leading scorer and the second leading scorer in the SEC, averaging 18.3 points per game while shooting an outstanding 45.5 percent from three.
A native of Chicago who played three seasons of college basketball for one of his home state schools, Friday will be one to remember for Reeves in a new era of college athletics that sees players take on their former teams quite often, similar to pro athletes facing off with their former team leaving via free agency or trade.
