Kentucky basketball’s Reed Sheppard can’t really be for real? Can he?
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Game day: No. 16 Kentucky 91, Mississippi State 89
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss.
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Are were sure Reed Sheppard is real?
Are we sure he’s not some AI-generated cyborg, concocted on somebody’s whiteboard and manufactured in a lab somewhere, or (even better) a Hollywood studio?
This can’t be real, right? Every editor would reject this script. A 6-foot-3 freshman guard who is the son of not just a famous basketball alumnus who led Kentucky to a national championship but also one of the best female basketball players in state history, as well. Fairy tale stuff, right?
Then Tuesday night at Mississippi State, in front of a “White Out,” against a team that had won five straight games and was pumped at “The Hump” to make big, bad Kentucky victim No. 6, there was Sheppard to don the cape and cap a 13-point comeback by dropping in the winning basket with 0.5 seconds left for a wild 91-89 Wildcats win.
“I told the team after,” UK coach John Calipari said, “he plays to win. He’s not playing not to lose.”
The Sheppard stat line included 32 points in 35 minutes, on 11-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-7 from 3-point range, 6-of-6 from the free throw line, seven assists, five rebounds, two steals and one bonehead play that Sheppard threw in near the end just to confirm to everyone he is human.
“I was about to choke him when he threw the ball deep and got them to the foul line,” Calipari said of Sheppard’s length-of-the-floor pass that was intercepted and led to Mississippi State pulling within 87-86 with 21.2 seconds left. “I was like, ‘Why would you do that?’”
Safe to say, Sheppard made up for the lapse in judgment and then some. He scored 11 of his team’s final 15 points, including an old-fashioned three-point play that put the Cats up 81-75 with 1:09 left, a pair of free throws to make it 87-81 with 35.6 seconds left and another pair of free throws at 16.7 seconds left to make it 89-86.
And then after State’s star freshman Josh Hubbard (34 points) hit the game-tying shot with 8.1 ticks left — drum-roll please — Sheppard one-upped Hubbard with that perfect floater from just inside the free throw line.
“(Sheppard) rose up and unfortunately had a really good angle and I was pretty darn sure that it was going in and it was a heck of a play,” said Mississippi State coach Chris Jans.
Sheppard had a better angle afterward when he said, “Everybody on the court wanted to shoot that shot. Everybody would have been OK with anyone shooting that shot.”
That’s the unreal thing about Reed Sheppard. With all the stories about his famous lineage and the hype throughout his legendary high school career in the sport that means so much to his state, he appears to be so darned smart and level-headed and humble.
It was Sheppard who helped fellow freshman Justin Edwards overcome his struggles before his breakout performance last Saturday. It is Sheppard who is averaging 4.3 assists, who the coaches have to urge to take more shots, who is the first to congratulate a teammate and his teammates him — or mob him as the Cats did after that buzzer-beater.
Make no mistake, Sheppard wanted that shot. You can see it in the replay. As D.J. Wagner is driving, Sheppard is clapping his hands. He wanted the ball back.
“Pretty cool,” said Sheppard when asked what it felt like to turn a backyard dream into real life.
What’s also cool is that while all the recruiting gurus — who ranked Sheppard as the 79th-best prospect — focus on who can jump out of the gym and fly down the floor, there is room for someone who is plenty athletic but who also knows how to play the game.
It was a pretty cool win, too. Kentucky’s rally didn’t come in one fell swoop. The Cats just kept chipping away. Back-to-back baskets here, a steal there. A key 3-pointer. A defensive stop. A timely rebound.
That shows fortitude and maturity, characteristics you want to see from a young team as we march into March.
“This was a huge win,” Sheppard said.
Said Calipari, “We are going to celebrate.”
For real.
This story was originally published February 28, 2024 at 11:09 AM.
