John Calipari and Mark Pope react to Kentucky basketball’s 2024 NBA draft selections

Kentucky basketball coaches past and present voiced their approval for UK’s showing in the 2024 NBA draft.

The Wildcats had three players from the 2023-24 team — Reed Sheppard (No. 3 overall), Rob Dillingham (No. 8 overall) and Antonio Reeves (No. 47 overall) — selected.

And former UK coach John Calipari, along with current UK coach Mark Pope, have both posted on social media as these ex-Cats learned their NBA destinations.

Calipari attended the first round of the NBA draft on Wednesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. While there, Calipari reunited with both Sheppard and Dillingham, who were at the draft as green room invitees.

Also while at this year’s draft, Calipari met up with the Sarr family: Oldest son Olivier played at Wake Forest and Kentucky as part of a four-year college career, and youngest son Alexandre was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 draft by the Washington Wizards.

For his part, Pope sent out a pair of congratulatory messages on social media after Sheppard and Dillingham were selected in the draft.

Both Calipari and Pope posted on social media after UK’s lone second round selection in the draft when Antonio Reeves was taken Thursday.

On Tuesday during his first media-only press conference as the Kentucky basketball coach, Pope discussed the importance of the NBA draft to the Kentucky basketball program.

“We’re super excited about the draft. We’ve got five guys eligible for this draft and there’s going to be some more history made with Kentucky basketball in the NBA draft,” Pope said. “We’re super excited for these young men and what they contributed here, what they’re going to do in the future.”

“This tradition at Kentucky of having great players come here, hang banners, then go play in the NBA is part of what makes this place so special,” Pope added.

With the three draft picks that Kentucky had in this year’s event, UK has now produced 141 players that have been selected all-time in an NBA draft.

This year marked the 24th time in Kentucky history that the Wildcats had at least three players taken in one draft.

This story was originally published June 27, 2024 at 7:08 PM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

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Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription