Reed Sheppard reacts to Rick Pitino posting about his performance

The Kentucky basketball team got a special performance from freshman Reed Sheppard on Tuesday night in a thoroughly convincing 95-73 win over Miami.

Sheppard was everywhere from the start, turning in 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.

His play was good enough that it caught the eye of former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino, who also coached Sheppard’s father with the Wildcats. Pitino gave Sheppard a special shoutout on Twitter during the game.

“It’s really cool,” said Sheppard after the game, reacting to Pitino’s tweet. “But you know it’s really easy doing that when I have the best teammates in the world who I think are really, really, really good and the best coaching staff in the world putting confidence in you and getting you better every day in practice.”

Through the first seven games of this season, Sheppard is averaging 12.3 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 3.1 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. He’s absolutely stuffing the stat sheet.

But the Kentucky freshman has been quite humble about it.

“None of us would be doing this if we didn’t compete and go against each other in practice,” Sheppard said. “We make each other better every single day. So I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my teammates.”

Reed Sheppard explains meaning behind wearing No. 15

Reed Sheppard isn’t your normal Kentucky commitment. As a four-star prospect, Top-40 recruit, and the No. 1 player out of the state Kentucky, the North Laurel product arrives as highly-touted as all the other Wildcat freshman. However, his family ties take his connection to Lexington to a whole other level.

That’s especially true now that Sheppard will be switching his high school jersey of No. 3 to No. 15, the number that his father, Jeff Sheppard, wore back in the mid-90s. Based on UK’s current roster, Sheppard’s son said that he realized that a number switch was possible and that it could be this meaningful for his family.

“Adou (Thiero) is wearing No. 3. So I figured, after that, I would just have to go with pop’s old number and rock the fifteen,” Sheppard said.

“I definitely thought about it. I kind of always kept it to myself though,” said Sheppard. “But I never told him. In my head, I was like I’m probably gonna wear No. 15. But I never said anything to him. So this year was the first time he ever heard about it.”