Arkansas coach says Antonio Reeves “played as good as any player” he has coached against at Arkansas

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Give Tom Leach credit, he tried to get Kentucky coach John Calipari to talk about Antonio Reeves’ sensational 37-point game in Saturday’s win at Arkansas.

Maybe Calipari was too giddy from the unexpected win considering UK did not have a true point guard to play. Maybe he had already talked about Reeves with media members in his postgame press conference after the 88-79 win.

But rather than talk about Reeves on the Kentucky Radio Network postgame show, Calipari talked about he was expecting a bigger game from freshman Chris Livingston.

However, others wanted to talk plenty about Reeves after he went 11-for-11 at the foul line and 12-for-17 from the field. Perhaps the most incredible thing about his performance was he took just four 3-points shots and made two but still had 37 points.

Arkansas coach Eric Musselman was upset his team went 2-for-20 on shots around the rim but he was impressed with Reeves who had the most points by a Razorback opponent since Kentucky’s Jodie Meeks scored 45 on Feb. 12, 2009.

“What happened tonight is Reeves stepped into the point guard position and had 37 points. He played as good as any player I’ve seen since I’ve been coaching at Arkansas,” Musselman said.

As good as any player he’s seen since he’s been at Arkansas. How impressive is that?

Kentucky all-American center Oscar Tshiebwe had 12 points and 13 rebounds but did not score in the second half when he was in foul trouble. He was overjoyed with what Reeves did.

“I am so happy. He did so much for us,” Tshiebwe said. “That boy saved us. He just came in and saved us from sinking.”

Maybe not sinking but he sure gave UK momentum for postseason play with  his career-high scoring (his previous high was 34 points for Illinois State vs. Valparaiso on Feb. 9, 2022). It was the third most points by a UK player in the Calipari era and most for a UK player in a true road game under Calipari.

Reeves, who has eight games with 20 or more points, also had just one turnover while playing all 40 minutes. He finished the game with four fouls but made sure to avoid what would have been a disastrous fifth foul.

Reeves scored 22 of his 37 in the second half, going 7-for-10 from the field and 7-for-7 at the line.

Kentucky Radio Network analyst Jack Givens also named Reeves his defensive player of the game for an unusual reason.

“Reeves was so into (Devo) Davis head he forced him to pick up two technical fouls and get run out of this game,” Givens said about the Arkansas guard who got ejected in part because of his frustration over tying to guard Reeves.

After Davis made a 3-pointer at the 18:45 mark of the second half to get Arkansas to within three (42-39), he was called for a foul and back-to-back technicals to get ejected. Reeves made all four free throws and added a jumper for a six-point possession and a nine-point lead.

“But the improvements he has made on defense have been fun to watch. I know earlier in the season he was losing minutes because he was not defending the way coach Cal wanted,” Givens said.