Kentucky’s newest basketball player is still soaking it in. ‘It’s an amazing opportunity.’

If you’re walking around Lexington and you see Tre Mitchell, don’t be afraid to say hello.

That invitation comes straight from the Kentucky basketball player himself.

Mitchell — a 6-foot-9, 225-pound power forward — certainly sticks out in any crowd, and though he’s been in town for only a couple of weeks, he’s already getting a clear sense of just how much UK basketball means to the folks around here.

A recent transfer from West Virginia, the 22-year-old player has seen the looks when he’s out and about. Fans clearly know who he is. Most, he said with a grin, don’t say anything. Whether it’s shyness or a sense that he doesn’t want to be bothered, Mitchell has been getting a lot more stares than salutations.

“Even me just walking around, going to the store or something — you can see people kind of, like, looking,” he said. “I would say, if people do see me in public, you can say, ‘Hello.’ I’m not going to be rude or anything. I’m a nice dude. We can chop it up for a minute.”

Mitchell is still new to life as a Kentucky basketball player. And he acknowledged Friday — in his first meeting with local reporters; a pleasant and gregarious debut — that it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind.

The well-traveled college basketball veteran began his career at UMass, where he starred for two seasons. He then transferred to Texas for his junior year. After that, a senior season spent at West Virginia, where he started 32 games and was one of the team’s top players.

Mitchell was all set on finishing out his college career at WVU, graduating from the school in May and looking ahead to a repeat trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2024.

Those plans took a turn when Bob Huggins resigned as leader of the Mountaineers’ program following his June 16 arrest, which led to a driving under the influence charge for the Hall of Fame coach.

By the following week, Mitchell was in the transfer portal yet again. Within 24 hours of that move, he was on UK’s campus for a recruiting visit. And a couple of days after that, he had publicly committed to the Wildcats.

As a college graduate, Mitchell will be permitted to play immediately at UK despite his previous transfers. He’ll also take advantage of the fifth year of eligibility granted by the NCAA to all players who participated in the COVID-19-impacted 2020-21 season.

And so, Kentucky will be his fourth and final stop on a long and winding college basketball journey. Is it a tough adjustment, trying to hit the ground running with a new team in July?

Not really.

“I’ve done it how many times at this point?” Mitchell asked with a knowing smile, eliciting laughter from everyone within earshot.

A week earlier, UK Coach John Calipari used the word “fate” to describe Mitchell’s late addition to his talented-but-young 2023-24 roster. The player himself didn’t go quite that far, but the match-made-in-heaven nature of his arrival in Lexington is obvious to anyone who knows the situation.

When Mitchell showed up for that UK visit a couple of weeks ago, Calipari didn’t immediately try to sell him on the program or break down how he might be utilized in the Wildcats’ lineup.

“Just watch practice and tell me what you think,” Calipari told him.

That’s what Mitchell did.

“And after watching practice — obviously, I’m an experienced guy, and I can see what’s going on — and I’m like, ‘Yeah, you guys are super talented, but you’re missing that piece.’”

That piece was a player just like Mitchell.

Exactly how this UK team pans out won’t be known for several months. They’re very young, after all. But it’s a group with a seemingly loaded backcourt, wings that range from NBA lottery pick expectations (Justin Edwards) to high-upside talent (Adou Thiero and Jordan Burks), and two 7-footers (Ugonna Onyenso and Aaron Bradshaw) that could very well hear their names called on draft night a year from now.

Two things this team didn’t have at the time: experience and a true power forward.

Mitchell checked both boxes. He knew it. And Calipari knew it.

“Good. That’s what I hope you saw,” the UK coach told Mitchell after hearing his post-practice observation. “I knew that’s what you would see at the end of it.’”

Tre Mitchell and Kentucky

The ties between Mitchell and Kentucky basketball were already there, making the lightning-quick nature of his commitment an obvious result.

Mitchell, like Calipari, is from Pittsburgh, and the Kentucky coach has been known to keep close tabs on high school players from that area, even if he doesn’t ultimately recruit them. Mitchell said Calipari had actually had some previous contact with him during his past forays into the transfer portal, and the Kentucky coach was clearly aware of his game before he became available again late last month.

Mitchell’s stepfather, Tony Bergeron, also goes way back with Calipari. Bergeron closely followed Calipari’s career — starting with his UMass tenure — while he was growing up in Springfield, Mass., and later instructed alongside the Hall of Famer at various youth basketball camps. Bergeron also coached Tyreke Evans — the star of Calipari’s final Memphis team — in high school.

The previous connections surely hurried up the process.

“Once I got in the portal and Cal reached out, it was just like, ‘It’s Kentucky.’ You know?” Mitchell said. “It’s Coach Calipari — his track record speaks for itself, and then once I got an opportunity to step on campus, and I felt the energy, and I saw what they were doing, it was like, ‘How can I pass up on that?’”

Everything has happened so fast that Mitchell didn’t even know, as of Friday, how many times he’d practiced with his new teammates.

“That’s a good question. I’ve been kind of getting lost in the days,” he said with another smile. “I’ve been enjoying every second of it. But I honestly can’t even remember when I got here at this point. I’m so focused on just trying to get to where I need to be to get ready for this trip to Canada.”

Mitchell said he’s been in the gym as much as he possibly can ahead of the Wildcats’ trip to the GLOBL JAM in Toronto. The team will play a closed-door scrimmage Tuesday before the real tournament begins Wednesday, with four exhibition games in five days stretching out to Sunday.

Though he’s been on campus for only a couple of weeks, Mitchell joins fellow fifth-year player Antonio Reeves as the most experienced college guys, by far, on the roster.

Mitchell averaged 18.0 points and 7.2 rebounds in his 44 games at UMass before tallying 8.7 points and 4.0 rebounds per game during his junior year at Texas. At West Virginia last season, he averaged 11.7 points and 5.5 rebounds in 30.0 minutes per game, making 36 threes and shooting 36.4 percent from long range.

He might be new to Kentucky, but so is just about everyone else on this team. As Mitchell points out, the seven scholarship freshmen on the squad had been on campus for less than a month before he arrived. Other than Reeves, the only returnees from last season are sophomores Onyenso and Thiero, who both played sparingly as freshmen.

And everyone already seems to be looking up to Mitchell, due to that experience.

“He’s a really good player,” Onyenso said. “How he plays, the competitiveness he has in him, how hard he wants to play, looking forward to practicing every day, coming in the gym and looking forward to playing with the guys we have. It’s really amazing playing with Mitchell.

“Sometimes I can even go to him for advice, because he’s been playing college ball more than me. You can definitely go to him for advice.”

Asked whether he felt like he was filling the “dad role” on this team, Mitchell laughed again.

“I don’t want to say the ‘dad role.’ I’m a little older. I’m not that old,” he said. “There’s some people that are like 25 in college. But it’s definitely to the point where they can lean on me when they need somebody.”

He hasn’t found the adjustment on the court too difficult either.

“I’m a little experienced, so I know how to play the game,” he said. “And I know how to fit in where I can. But even before I got here, these dudes hadn’t been here for too long before me. So it’s just a matter of us jelling and figuring it out together. And I think Coach has done a great job of giving us that opportunity in practice — letting us play and letting us kind of figure things out. But at the same time, I think he’s trying to figure things out, too.”

That’s the mode just about everyone around Kentucky basketball is in these days. New team. New dynamic. Lots of unknowns. Lots of potential. Calipari and company obviously hope it all works out in the end. Getting a player like Mitchell so late in the process can only help.

And getting to finish a college career at a place like Kentucky? The newest Cat is just happy to be here.

“Before getting here, obviously I knew that Big Blue Nation was one of a kind. That’s for sure,” Mitchell said. “But since being a part of it, it has stepped up to a whole other level. You can see the love and the passion that everybody in Lexington — whether it be online or in person — that they carry. You see that UK shirt everywhere you go. And I think it’s an amazing opportunity to even be a part of something like that. People who care this much about the game and are willing to support new people, support young dudes, old dudes — whoever it is — they got that jersey on, they’re supporting them.

“I just think that’s amazing.”

GLOBL JAM

The schedule for men’s games in the GLOBL JAM, an international basketball showcase in Toronto featuring Kentucky as the USA representative:

Wednesday, July 12

1:30 p.m.: United States vs. Germany (CBS Sports Network live)

8 p.m.: Canada vs. Africa

Thursday, July 13

1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. Germany

8 p.m.: Canada vs. United States (CBS Sports Network at midnight)

Saturday, July 15

1:30 p.m.: Africa vs. United States (CBS Sports Network live)

8 p.m.: Germany vs. Canada

Sunday, July 16

1:30 p.m.: Bronze medal game

8 p.m.: Gold medal game (CBS Sports Network live, if UK is playing)

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