Reed Sheppard staying quiet on his recruitment, has made contact with Kentucky

One of the top hoopers in the Bluegrass, Reed Sheppard is showing off his talents to the state of Indiana this weekend.

KSR is in the outskirts of Indianapolis this weekend covering MadeHoops and its Midwest Mania event, which has loaded up on some of the best talents across the country to kick off the AAU circuit. Reed Sheppard, a 6-foot-2 class of 2023 combo guard from North Laurel High School, and the Midwest Basketball Club made the trip to southern Indiana and they put on a show in an early matchup on Saturday morning.

Despite the 9:15 a.m. tip-time, Sheppard lived up to expectations, making shots from all over the court while showing off his impressive athleticism.

Following his squad’s 72-36 domination of Next Page Force, Sheppard spoke with KSR about his performance before giving a minor update on his recruitment process.

“I thought it was a good game,” Sheppard said of his efforts. “We came out as a team and–it was a 9:15 game so those are always tough, AAU early morning games. I think we came out as a team and just played hard defensively and held them to 36 points, 14 in the second half, and we were hitting out shots offensively.”

Sheppard showed off his deep range en route to an easy win, knocking down a triple that was several feet behind the 3-point arc. He also had no issue getting into the lane and pulling up for flawless mid-range jumpers.

Here at @madehoops for #MidwestMania, watching @reed_sheppard play for the first time in person.

He is pretty good… pic.twitter.com/LaQLr4KxnA

— Zack Geoghegan (@ZGeogheganKSR) April 24, 2021

“That’s something we’ve been working on at school, back at home,” Sheppard said about his outside game. “Just not being able to shoot it right on the line, but being able to step out and shoot it farther because not everyone will come up and guard you, so you gotta be able to hit the long shot in the long run.”

As far as his recruitment goes, Sheppard is staying mum on which schools are after him, but did say he’s hearing from plenty of Divison I programs. Thus far, he’s already received offers from Power 5 schools Texas A&M and Iowa, along with a handful of smaller programs such as Iona, South Alabama, and Stetson.

“There’s been a couple other high-major schools, I’m not going to mention any of them, but they’ve all been contacting,” Sheppard added. “Just pretty much just saying that they know who I am and they’re going to watch and hopefully when college coaches can come out and start watching they’ll be able to talk to me and see me play in person.”

With the recruiting dead period still in play until June 1, the opportunity to develop relationships with different coaching staffs has been difficult, but that will surely change once May comes to an end. Sheppard says he plans on seeing “as many campuses as he can” once the live period does kick in.

Sheppard’s father, Jeff, a former Kentucky Wildcat from 1993-1998 who was named the Most Outstanding Player at the 1998 NCAA Tournament, said back in February on the Cameron Mills Radio Show that Kentucky has reached out to his son’s high school, North Laurel, to connect with Reed.

The younger Sheppard confirmed with KSR on Saturday that he and his family have made contact with UK, but he preferred not to go into greater detail.

“We contacted [Kentucky] earlier but we’re going to let everything play out,” Sheppard said about his recruitment status with the in-state Wildcats. “Kentucky is a big school for anybody in the state of Kentucky but I’m not going to say anything. We’re just going to let it play out and wherever God wants me to go is where I’ll end up going.”