Reed Sheppard will announce his college decision Saturday. ‘Everything feels right.’
One of the most celebrated high school basketball recruits in recent memory is ready to make his college announcement.
Reed Sheppard — a 6-foot-3 combo guard from London, Ky. — will reveal his college commitment at 9 a.m. Saturday during a ceremony in the North Laurel High School gymnasium.
Sheppard is set to begin his junior season later this month, but he has already achieved folk hero status in Kentucky basketball circles. The son of two former UK stars — Jeff Sheppard and Stacey Reed Sheppard — he led the state in scoring as a sophomore last season, averaging 30.1 points per game and leading North Laurel to a 25-3 record, one victory short of a trip to the Sweet Sixteen in Rupp Arena.
The in-state star began creeping up the national rankings for the 2023 class going into the summer before his profile was raised even further on the Adidas circuit. In July, he played in front of college coaches and picked up scholarship offers from Kentucky, Louisville and several other major programs.
By the end of the summer, he had achieved five-star status on the national recruiting websites, with 247Sports ranking him as the No. 17 overall player in the class of 2023.
“I see him every day, so I know how good he is,” North Laurel Coach Nate Valentine said Monday. “And I knew that he could compete on a national level against those guys. He’s a really good player. It’s funny. I just kind of laughed when people would say, ‘Well, he hasn’t done it against national competition yet.’ That’s the one thing that everybody wanted to see. And I get it.
“But I see him every day, and there were no surprises at all that he had the success that he did. He was on a great AAU team with a great coach. And I think he finally got the credit he deserved.”
Sheppard will tip off his junior season at North Laurel on Nov. 29 with a home game against Red Bird. First will come an opportunity to make his college decision public.
“Obviously, getting a commitment out of the way will be some relief for him,” Valentine said.
Sheppard’s combination of elite scoring, knockdown shooting ability — he was 40.9 percent from three last season — family ties and, now, national renown, has made him the biggest in-state basketball recruit in years, and a player of particular interest to UK fans.
Kentucky Coach John Calipari extended a scholarship offer to Sheppard in July, less than 24 hours after seeing him play in person for the first time, a viewing that was delayed by COVID-19 restrictions that didn’t allow college coaches to watch recruits from March 2020 until this summer.
Sheppard obviously made the most of his first opportunities to showcase his skills in front of a national audience. By the end of the summer, he had scholarship offers from Kentucky, Louisville, Indiana, Ohio State and Virginia, among others. He’s taken recruiting visits to each of those schools over the past few months, including two trips to UK, one of them for the program’s Big Blue Madness event in October.
College coaches have also flocked to North Laurel since the fall recruiting period opened in September, with Calipari and U of L’s Chris Mack among those who have been to the gym to see Sheppard.
As of Monday morning, all 12 of the predictions across Sheppard’s 247Sports Crystal Ball and Rivals.com FutureCast pages were in favor of Kentucky, including a new one Monday from 247Sports analyst Travis Branham, who has tracked Sheppard’s recruitment closely.
On Saturday morning, Sheppard will bring an early end to speculation on a recruitment that has already captivated Kentucky fans.
“He’s been really diligent in his recruiting process,” Valentine said. “He’s gone on a lot of visits and he’s been on a lot of campuses — met the coaches, and the coaches have been here. I think he just felt comfortable. I don’t think he was on a timeline. It’s just kind of when he felt comfortable, and the process kind of takes care of itself once you’re in the middle of it. I think the timing was right, everything feels right, and that’s why he felt like it was time to go ahead and do it.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 10:13 AM.
