First Scouting Report: Kentucky’s next game pits Antonio Reeves against his former team
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Game day: No. 9 Kentucky 95, Louisville 76
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Thursday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Louisville at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville.
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A look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 9 Kentucky (9-2) will face Illinois State (8-4) on Friday, Dec. 29, at Rupp Arena (seating capacity of 20,545) at Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington.
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and be telecast by the SEC Network.
Behind 22 points from Darius Burford and 18 points and nine rebounds from Kendall Lewis, Illinois State defeated Southeast Missouri State 85-64 last Thursday night.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Illinois State 1-0.
As UK head man, John Calipari is 1-0 against Illinois State.
Illinois State coach Ryan Pedon has never faced Kentucky as a head coach.
Most recent meeting
Isaiah Briscoe had 18 points, Jamal Murray added 16 and Marcus Lee had a double-double, 13 points and 12 rebounds, to lead Kentucky to a 75-63 win over Illinois State on Nov. 30, 2015, at Rupp Arena.
Power rankings
In the Pomeroy Ratings, Kentucky is No. 21 and Illinois State No. 199.
The NCAA NET rankings have Kentucky No. 30, Illinois State No. 193.
Know your foe
1. Kentucky super-senior shooting guard Antonio Reeves played his first three college seasons for Illinois State. Reeves, a 6-foot-6, 195-pound Chicago product, averaged 7.2 points a game as an Illinois State freshman in 2019-20, then raised his averages to 12.4 in 2020-21 and led the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring at 20.1 as a junior in 2021-22.
After that breakout season, Reeves entered the transfer portal and eventually chose Kentucky.
In his three seasons with the Redbirds, Reeves scored 1,195 points.
Going into Thursday night’s game at Louisville, Reeves had scored 659 points as a UK player.
2. Illinois State is already 2-0 this season against teams from the commonwealth of Kentucky.
On Dec. 3, the Redbirds beat visiting Murray State 76-72 in an MVC contest. Balance carried Illinois State to the victory, as the Redbirds put five players in double figures and had seven players score at least seven points.
Three days later, Illinois State survived Northern Kentucky 62-59 on the Redbirds’ home court. The Illinois State defense held NKU stars Marquis Warrick (6-for-16) and Sam Vinson (1-for-8) to combined field-goal shooting of 7-for-24.
3. A 6-foot senior guard, Darius Burford is the leading Illinois State scorer at 12.9 points a game. A product of Bolingbrook, Illinois, who began his college career at Elon, Burford leads the Redbirds in scoring in spite of an arctic 3-point shooting percentage of 17.1 (6-for-35).
Dalton Banks, a 6-2, 190-pound guard who transferred from Southern Illinois, is the only other Illinois State player averaging double-digit points in 2023-24 at 11.2 points per game.
This story was originally published December 21, 2023 at 8:15 PM.
