Kyle Tucker

@KyleTucker_CJ

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Isaac Humphries has just finished saying how he’s not the type to get nervous in front of a crowd, which is an important quality to have as a Kentucky basketball player, but now it’s time to perform and all the eyeballs and cameras in this place are trained on him and the freshman 7-footer’s palms are sweating.

He rubs them dry, though, draws in a deep breath to compose himself and lets it fly.

“Hello, it’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet,” he sings, as his hands dance across the keys of a piano inside UK’s Schmidt Vocal Arts Center, filling the room with a beautiful rendition of Adele’s hit song.

Long before a growth spurt at age 13 turned him into a basketball player, Humphries’ first love was music. He remembers a red and white tambourine that he just couldn’t put down and a mother who recognized his talent by age 5 and enrolled him an elementary school that focused on the performing arts.

He learned to play piano, trumpet, saxophone and drums. He can only read music for the trumpet and teaches himself songs on the other instruments by ear.

Humphries started doing plays and musicals, including “The King and I,” “Oliver” and “High School Musical,” which coincidentally is about the captain of a basketball team turning heads when he tries out for the lead in a show. That part, and a quote he heard on television recently and stored in his phone, struck a chord (so to speak) within Humphries.

“I don’t want to be known for one thing that I do, but everything that I do. You only get one life to live, so live it,” he said. “I like that. I thought it applied to me with basketball and singing and everything. I feel like I have so much more than just basketball. Why not do a lot, do everything? You only get one shot.”

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So there was the towering Australian center on Monday before basketball practice, belting out Adele songs and Snow Patrol’s hit “Chasing Cars,” allowing the Courier-Journal’s cameras to capture the talent most Kentucky fans only know from a few short Instagram videos Humphries has shared.

The next night, he’d be in uniform at Rupp Arena, which was filled with about 23,000 people expecting greatness. But that big stage is still not as intimidating as singing and dancing on an actual stage in front of much smaller crowds.

“Just because there’s always that fear of forgetting your lyrics,” Humphries said, “whereas basketball, you can kind of play through forgetting a play or something like that.”

On the court, Humphries remains a work in progress. He has played in just eight of 16 games for the 14th-ranked Wildcats, averaging 9.5 minutes, 2.5 points and a pair of rebounds. His best game of the season came in a loss at UCLA after Marcus Lee was injured, when he got four points and six boards.

But he views this almost like a bonus year. Humphries wasn’t planning to enter college until next fall but reclassified and jumped in early because he saw an opportunity at Kentucky, which has a thin frontcourt. Thanks to the NBA’s minimum age requirement – players must be 19 to enter the draft – he’s a rare top-40 recruit with no designs on bolting after just one season. He only turned 18 last week. His focus is developing into a good college player.

“It’s been something to get used to and adjust to, but I think every day, just working with (assistant coach Kenny Payne) I’m getting so much better than I was at the start,” Humphries said. “Eventually, I’ll get to a point where I’ll be able to play and contribute, not just get on and shoot an airball like I did last week.

“It took me a while to kind of figure it out and understand what you need to do and how much you need to work to do this. Now that I’ve figured it out, it’s just a day-to-day thing.”

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While he chases the basketball dream, music has been temporarily put on the back burner. He’s taking a music class this semester, but he’s not in UK’s music school. He hasn’t performed in a musical since he left Australia to finish high school in the U.S.

Humphries does get over to the university’s fine arts building about twice a week to play the piano and hopes to eventually rekindle a musical career of some kind.

“I would like to one day do both and use a name I create in (basketball) to do that,” he said. “Imagine an NBA Christmas album.”

He loves to sing “O Holy Night.” His favorite artist is Beyonce and favorite song is “Ordinary People” by John Legend. His favorite musical – Humphries stayed in New York with his mother to see three Broadway shows in as many days after UK’s game against Ohio State in Brooklyn – is “Wicked.”

He’s not sure there’s a part for him in that Wizard of Oz-inspired show, but “maybe ‘The Addams Family,’ as Lurch. That’s fitting.” That’s a good joke now, because he’s abnormally tall, but he wasn’t always. Heading into the seventh grade, Humphries was still normal-sized and had never really even picked up a basketball.

“That was a weird stage in my life,” he said. “I wasn’t really playing a sport at that point, which was different for me because I’d always been playing a sport. I literally tried every sport except for basketball, and I was kind of in a dead spot. Music had kind of taken a back seat because it wasn’t really the social thing to do and wasn’t really, like, accepted.”

Then he started growing – and growing and growing.

“My mom said, ‘Why don’t you try basketball?’ ” Humphries said. “So yeah, lucky I grew.”

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These days, his two passions often intersect. One of his highlights this season was meeting “The Voice” winner and Kentucky native Jordan Smith before he sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before UK’s game against Ole Miss. They had plenty to talk about, as Humphries is close friends with two former competitors – one of them a winner – on Australia’s version of the show.

And now that his teammates have discovered his talent, Humphries is always on call to perform.

“If we’re ever on the road or in a car and ‘Hello’ comes on, it’s instantly, ‘Isaac, you have to start singing.’ They say they can’t listen to ‘Hello’ without thinking of me now,” he said. “They really like it. They think it’s really cool. That’s not how it is everywhere. A lot of people could think it’s a little weird and a little different, but I’m at a point now where I really don’t care what people think. I just kind of do what I want. Do what makes you happy.”

Oddly, what doesn’t make Humphries happy is listening to music in the car or on his phone, where he has just two songs (by the Australian “Voice” winner) downloaded. He prefers to either be making the music or watching it live. Otherwise, not at all.

“It’s a very strange thing. People don’t understand it, but that’s just me. I don’t listen to music before a game. I don’t ever listen to music,” he said. “I like to sit in silence and just think. When I’m in the car, especially, I don’t want loud music blaring all the time. When you’re with your friends, I’d rather talk than just have rap music playing or a big techno song going.

“But maybe I’m just a different human. Who knows?”

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him atktucker@courier-journal.com.