Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard named SEC Freshman of the Year, four Cats honored by league

By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today

Reed Sheppard was named Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year by the league’s coaches on Monday.

Sheppard also was named to the All-SEC Second Team on Monday, while teammate Antonio Reeves was named to the First Team and Rob Dillingham was named to the second team. Sheppard, Dillingham and D.J. Wagner were named to the All-Freshman team, while Dillingham was named the conference Sixth-man of the Year.

Earlier Monday, Sheppard was named the SEC Freshman of the Week for the fourth time. He finished the regular season as the only player in the nation to collect at least 75 steals and dish out 140 assists. Sheppard also made 70 3-pointers for the Wildcats. Sheppard is averaging 12.7 points per game and has logged double-figures in 20 games.

Reeves has scored 20 or more points in seven straight games going into the postseason and is the team’s leading scorer at 20,.2 ppg., the highest in John Calipari’s 15 seasons in Lexington.

Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht was named the SEC Player of the Year and Lamont Paris of South Carolina was named Coach of the Year. Zakai Zeigler was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year.

2023-24 SEC Men’s Basketball Awards:

First Team:

Second Team:

All-Defensive Team:

All-Freshman Team:

Coach of the Year: Lamont Paris, South Carolina

Player of the Year: Dalton Knecht, Tennessee

Scholar-Athlete of the Year: Sean East II, Missouri

Freshman of the Year: Reed Sheppard, Kentucky

Sixth-Man of the Year: Rob Dillingham, Kentucky

Defensive Player of the Year: Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee