Reed Sheppard, North Laurel lock up Sweet 16 berth with win over Knox Central
With two fists raised high above his head, Reed Sheppard couldn’t help but let out a big smile as the closing seconds ran off the clock. In the stands just a few rows up, his father and Kentucky Basketball legend, Jeff Sheppard, held his arms just as high as his son’s, tears rolling down his cheeks while screaming as if he’d just won the 1998 NCAA Championship.
For the first time in either of their lives, they’ll soon participate in the KHSAA Boy’s Sweet 16 Tournament.
The younger Sheppard has been considered the top player in the state of Kentucky since the end of his sophomore season. Now a junior at North Laurel High School and following in his father’s footsteps as a future Wildcat, Reed had never made it out of the regional rounds. Knox Central had a stranglehold on the 13th Region for the last three seasons, winning the tournament from 2019-21 and subsequently earning a spot at Rupp Arena for the Sweet 16. The last three seasons all saw Knox Central knock out Sheppard and North Laurel in the 13th Region Tournament.
But Monday night was the opportunity for revenge. North Laurel has faced a gauntlet of a schedule throughout the season, especially for a small school from southeastern Kentucky. The Jaguars came in incredibly battle-tested after facing nine of the top 25 teams in the state, winning four of them. North Laurel had even beaten Knox Central by a tight score of 90-86 back on Feb. 15, but a rematch in the 13th Region Championship would bring on an intense atmosphere at Corbin Arena, where over 5,000 people showed up to catch the show.
Sheppard went out and dropped 37 points, leading North Laurel to a 69-56 victory in a game where the Jaguars took full control in the fourth quarter. There was a poor stretch in the second quarter that allowed Knox Central to stay alive, but the Panthers had zero answers for Sheppard once he slithered his way inside the perimeter. He shot 13-24 for the night, including a perfect 10-10 clip from the free-throw line, while adding 11 assists, six rebounds, two blocks, and two steals. His co-star and first-cousin, Ryan Davidson, added 13 points and six rebounds of his own.
The reality of the moment hit Sheppard and his North Laurel teammates, who have all played together since elementary school, before the final buzzer could even sound off.
“It’s crazy right now. You don’t really know what to think right now, it’s all kind of surreal,” Sheppard said immediately after the win. “…You could just feel, in your body, everything tingling. It was awesome.”
This win had been a long time coming for Sheppard. He and his team had lost to Knox Central in the postseason when he was an eighth-grader, freshman, and sophomore. But North Laurel has been the better team all season long and it showed once again on Monday night. Everyone in the arena knew that Knox Central was seeking its fourth consecutive 13th Region title, but the last three years don’t have anything to do with the present.
“I told our guys that the thing about the postseason, even before this game, in the postseason you don’t carry any points or wins over. Everybody starts 0-0 and you don’t get to take any points from last year,” North Laurel head coach Nate Valentine said postgame. “But it’s the elephant in the room, everybody knows this has been Knox Central’s tournament for the last three years. So just really excited for our guys.”
The win didn’t come without some adversity though. North Laurel took a commanding 21-6 lead after the first quarter and looked to be on the brink of blowing the Panthers out. But Knox Central responded in the second, hitting shot after shot to trim the deficit down to just 32-26 at the intermission. Knox Central would even win the third quarter by two points, but the final frame was all North Laurel.
“We went into halftime and said we just gotta be the more physical team,” Ryan Davidson said. “Come out of halftime and really bust them and focus on defense a lot more and rebounding.”
In the end, defense and rebounding (plus free-throw shooting) won the game for North Laurel. Knox Central shot just 11-33 (33.3 percent) over the entire second half while the Jaguars shot 42.9 percent. Sheppard hit several clutch shots from the charity stripe to seal the win down the stretch. Once he stepped to the line, there was never any doubt he wouldn’t knock them in, either. Sheppard has been as consistent as anybody in the state this season and his attention to detail has only improved once the postseason began.
“Reed’s been focused. You’ll learn with Reed he’s really quiet,” Reed’s mother, Stacey Sheppard, said after the game. “He’s been laser-focused on what the gameplan has been for this week and each of the games. Today he came home, took a nap, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and left for the game. He’s been ready to play this game for a while.”
Sheppard — who is a creamy peanut butter type of guy, if you were wondering — only ate half of that sandwich, but it was more than enough to fuel him to the biggest win of his life thus far.
“At this point, he just has to have fun,” Jeff Sheppard said of Reed. “When I left him this morning — well I saw him late last night, I had to get up early and go to work, and before he went to bed last night I just gave him a hug and told him to have fun. And he did. It was an incredible performance by him. I’ve watched him play a lot of basketball games and I’ve seen him in a lot of settings and tonight was very special.”
There will be plenty more basketball to watch in Jeff’s future, too. Rupp Arena was already expected to host a sizable crowd for next week’s Sweet 16, but with a future Kentucky Wildcat in the mix, the environment could look more like a midseason UK game than a high school tournament.
“It’s gonna be great. It’ll be a fun atmosphere,” Jeff Sheppard said. “I think that the fans will enjoy the story, they’ll enjoy not only Reed, but the North Laurel team. But you know what, there are 16 other ones that are coming in there with a great story too so we’ll worry about Rupp Arena a little bit later. We’re just going to enjoy this one for tonight.”
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