Reed Sheppard recounts ‘dream come true’ Kentucky career ahead of 2024 NBA Draft
Sheppard left a mark on the Wildcats program in his lone year of college basketball.
Former Kentucky basketball star Reed Sheppard is the favorite to become the first college player selected at this week’s 2024 NBA Draft. While he landed in Lexington with modest freshman-year expectations as a four-star recruit, the Kentucky legacy commit quickly developed into one of college basketball’s most prolific scorers and emerged as an NBA-ready shooter. His time with the Wildcats was brief, but it was a career that the son of program great Jeff Sheppard called “a dream come true.”
Sheppard made perhaps the highest-anticipated stay-or-go draft decision of the offseason when he announced his intention to go pro, and while another year with the Wildcats would have been a major lift for a UK program in flux, the sharpshooter had nothing left to prove after he posted a remarkable 52.1% 3-point clip in his lone year on campus.
“It was a fun time,” Sheppard said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I couldn’t have asked for a better year and a better group of teammates and group of coaches. It was an unbelievable year, and I’m super thankful that I was able to be a part of that.”
Both of Sheppard’s parents are immortalized in Kentucky basketball lore with his father winning two national championships with the Wildcats and his mother finishing her career among the school’s top 10 all-time leading scorers. The one-year star made his own mark on the program as one of its most decorated freshmen of all time.
“I always remember going to games and going to the SEC Tournament with Mom and Dad and just them taking me to games and being around all the players and the coaches and going to practices and watching all the games,” said Sheppard. “So growing up I was definitely all around it, and it was definitely a dream come true being able to play there.”
Sheppard dazzled NBA scouts during the 2023-24 college season but also put on a show at the NBA Draft Combine, where he recorded a 42-inch vertical and canned shots from the perimeter with ease. He appears poised to become Kentucky’s highest draft pick since Karl-Anthony Towns went first overall in 2015.
“I’m very thankful to be in the position that I’m in,” said Sheppard. “I’m going to be excited wherever I end up. Wherever I go, it’s going to be an unbelievable experience, and it’s something that me and my family will be able to celebrate together. So I’m really looking forward to it, and I’m really glad to be here in New York and be at the draft this year.”
