Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky guard Antonio Reeves said he never envisioned being named a finalist for the Jerry West Award even though he’s leading UK in scoring at 20 points per game and leads the Southeastern Conference — and ranks four nationally — in 3-point field goal percentage at 44.2.
“I just continue hooping. Continue to do what I’m doing,” Reeves said Tuesday.
Reeves is one of five finalists for the award honoring the nation’s best shooting guard along with Caleb Love (Arizona), Kevin McCullar Jr. (Kansas), Tyson Walker (Michigan State) and RJ Davis (North Carolina).
Reeves debated not returning to Kentucky for a fifth collegiate season after transferring to UK from Illinois State last season. He now has over 2,000 career points and has been a 1,000-point scorer at both schools.
Going into tonight’s final home game against Vanderbilt, Reeves has scored 2,263 total points in college. He has 1,068 of those points at UK — the most in a two-year span as a Wildcat is 1,213 by Bill Spivey with Tshiebwe next at 1,117.
Reeves not only shoots 44.2 percent from 3, but he’s hitting over 50 percent overall from the field thanks to what has become a deadly floater and mid-range game. He’s also hitting nearly 88 percent at the foul line. Reeves’ rebounding and assists are both up this year while his turnovers have decreased.
He is the only Power 5 player averaging at least 1.5 made 3-pointers and shooting at least 49 percent from the field, 43.5 percent from 3-point range and 86.6 percent at the foul line.
Reeves, Tshiebwe (4), Malik Monk (4) and Jamal Murray (3) are the only players in the UK-John Calipari era to have multiple games with 30 or more points. He has scored 20 or more points in 17 of UK’s 29 games. Eleven of his 27 career 20-plus point games have come on the road. He has 53 double-digit scoring games at UK, 41 games with multiple made 3’s and eight games with five or more made 3’s.
Reeves came close to either transferring or trying his luck with the NBA before coming back to UK in part because incoming freshmen players reached out to him about returning. He also admits he didn’t know how transferring to UK would work out.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he said. “I didn’t know how it was going to play out. So just seeing me transition from the past to now, it’s just like, ‘Wow.’ This feeling that I’m going to have tomorrow — it’s really going to be my last time playing at Rupp. “It’s definitely going to be amazing.”
He’s also hoping postseason play will be amazing based on how his freshman teammates continue to improve. He had to help them early in the season both in practice and games when they made mistakes and became the team leader.
“I’ve grown so much, I feel like,” he said. “Just the leadership, and maturity-wise helped me out in so many ways. Just staying organized, being a big brother to these guys helped me out and motivated me even more to do what I need to do on the floor,” Reeves said.
“Just to make sure these guys win. And they did the same thing for me. Those are good guys. They’re dogs. And they definitely helped me out, as well.”
4 Responses
Wasn’t for Reeves the cats wouldn’t be were they are now.
For sure. Without Reeves we wouldn’t be in a 3 way tie for 3rd place.
He has grown so much from coming back for another year. The freshman on the team this year needs to take note & see how much another year will improve their game.
Good point John!