OXFORD — Trey Perry took into consideration a couple factors that ultimately made the decision an easy one.
The Lakota East High School basketball standout chose Miami University to continue his athletic and academic careers when he heads off to the next level.
“The love that the coaching staff has, they established that love early on in my recruitment,” Perry said. “That love never really wavered. So, when I was going further into the recruiting process, there was a lot of, not really so much broken promises, but words that were said and not a lot of action. Miami lived up to their words.”
Perry, a soon-to-be senior at Lakota East, made the announcement late last month that he would be joining Miami coach Travis Steele and the RedHawks.
He was highly recruited from other schools, including Radford, Bellarmine, Toledo, Akron, Illinois State, Youngstown State, Southern Indiana, Florida Gulf Coast, American and South Carolina State.
“For me, Miami had an advantage all along,” Perry said. “I never really paid attention early on because I always left my options open to a lot of other schools. With them being close to home, that was really a big advantage.”
Perry averaged a Greater Miami Conference-best 22.9 points a game his junior year and has been named first-team All-GMC each of the last two seasons.
“This gives me a lot of relief,” Perry said. “This clears space in my mind to be able to completely focus my basketball game on just getting better, getting ready for the next level and working with my guys to try and go as far as we can this coming season.”
Perry said he has a connection with RedHawks assistant coach Carl Richburg that stems back to his youth basketball days and commended Miami for playing the recruitment game perfectly.
The decision opened his eyes to understanding the process.
“When you go through a recruitment that’s almost three years long, you get to see people for how they are in time,” Perry said. “For me, it taught me a lot as a person to read behind words and take what people do and not what they say.
“For anyone going through a recruiting process like this, you have to look at what schools do and not what they say. That’s really important to me — and you have to choose wisely.”
Perry said he’s excited knowing that he will have a local fanbase behind him when he gets up to Oxford.
“I’m ready to bring my love to the game,” he said. “I’m going to be a person that will work hard and will want to win from the jump. Even though I just committed, I’m ready to get to work. They want me to work out tomorrow, I would.”
Lakota East coach Clint Adkins said Miami is fortunate to land to the 6-foot-1 ballhandler.
“When you’re making that kind of decision, it is a very personal decision,” Adkins said. “He did have to go through that process, really feel it out and figure out what the best fit is for him — athletically, academically, socially. There is so much that goes into it.
“Early on in the process, it’s a very flattering thing to have coaches calling you and contacting you and making you offers,” Adkins added. “After a while, I think it becomes very taxing to where you’ll have to tell adults, ‘No. I’m not coming here.’
“Miami was always right there for him. I think they did the best job recruiting him of anybody. For him, I think it felt like a family as much as any of the other places. He already had a standing relationship with one of the assistants. All in all, it was big relief for him. From a selfish standpoint, I love it. I get an opportunity to go up the road and watch him play.”
Lakota East went 12-13 this past season, beating LaSalle and St. Xavier in the postseason before losing to Hamilton. Miami was 15-17 overall and 9-9 in the Mid-American Conference.
