There was an electric moment in new Kentucky coach Mark Pope’s introductory press conference Sunday that, for some involved, was also a bit uncomfortable. Pope brought the packed house at Rupp Arena to a boil with this play on words: “Our job as coaches is we get to shepherds …” The crowd heard that as Sheppard, as in former UK stars Jeff and Stacey Sheppard — and even more notably, their son, national freshman of the year Reed Sheppard — and responded with a deafening roar.

Then a “Reed! Reed! Reed!” chant. Then a “One more year!” chant. Another former star and longtime Sheppard family friend, Rex Chapman, stood beside Jeff just off the stage and both men smiled nervously.

“I’m glad Reed wasn’t here,” Chapman said afterward. “That would’ve been a hard thing for him.”

Because Sheppard knows how badly the fan base wants him to come back for a sophomore season. But he also knows he’s likely to be a top-10 pick in this summer’s NBA Draft. He knows that Pope, his father’s college roommate, runs an offense that suits him perfectly and that together, they could be the faces of a new era in Kentucky basketball.

“It’s very tough,” Chapman said. “Kentucky is Reed’s dream school. I know for a fact they didn’t think any of this stuff would happen so fast. So it’s almost, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ You work your a— off your entire life to become as good as you can be and play at the University of Kentucky and you do that, and now you’re forced (to make) a very, very adult decision. I’m happy he’s in this position, but man, it’s hard.”

On Thursday afternoon, Sheppard finally ripped off the Band-Aid with a video message declaring his intentions of entering the 2024 NBA Draft. In a subsequent text message to The Athletic, Jeff Sheppard clarified that this isn’t merely a testing of the waters.

“Reed is 100% all in,” his father wrote.

“I’m just a little boy from London, Ky., with a big dream,” Reed said in his video. “Playing basketball at the University of Kentucky was a big part of my dream. … Kentucky is home. Kentucky will always be home. However, there is another part of my dream: to play basketball in the NBA. I believe it is time to pursue that dream.”

Thank you pic.twitter.com/k6Np3GyYr2

— reed sheppard (@reed_sheppard) April 18, 2024

Sam Vecenie’s latest NBA mock draft for The Athletic had Sheppard going No. 4 overall. Vecenie wrote then, in late March, that it was increasingly likely he would be taken somewhere in the first eight picks if he left school. The eighth pick in last year’s draft, Jarace Walker, signed a guaranteed four-year, $27.6 million deal. Sheppard could’ve made seven figures in name, image and likeness deals by sticking around another year at Kentucky, but nowhere near that kind of money.

Also, “If the right team ends up at No. 1, it’s even possible he at least gets a workout and meetings to prove his chops with that team,” Vecenie wrote. “It’s almost impossible for a college player of any age to be this productive and efficient.”

The 6-foot-3 Sheppard, named SEC Rookie of the Year, USBWA Freshman of the Year and NABC Freshman of the Year, led the SEC in steals and true shooting percentage and hit 52.1 percent of his 3-point attempts. He averaged 12.5 points, 4.5 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 2.5 steals. He’s the only high-major player in the last 30 years with at least 75 made 3s, 75 steals, 140 assists and 20 blocks.

He might’ve come to Kentucky envisioning a multi-year career — as did most of the fan base that adores him — but Sheppard simply played his way out of that reality. He created a new one, in which he ultimately had to make a head-over-heart decision.

“You gotta just keep in mind, every athlete is one wrong step from never playing again,” Chapman said Sunday. “And as much as you want to hang around and you want to be a kid, you gotta weigh that. I can say this: He’s got the two best people, in Jeff and Stacey, to advise him. They’re a family that’s very grounded. I have no doubt they’ll make the right decision. Reed will make the right decision.”

Jeff Sheppard, delighted to see his lifelong friend become head coach of his alma mater, said last week that he’d met with Pope about Reed’s future and there would be an opportunity for a recruiting pitch. After all, he said, Pope made the first in-home recruiting visit to Reed, as an assistant at Georgia, when the eventual McDonald’s All-American was only 7 years old. But in the end, that decision was likely already all but made, no matter who the coach was.

“There’s considerable interest right now, it seems, from the NBA, so we have to listen to that and we are listening to that,” Jeff said last week. “There’s also considerable interest, obviously, from the fans at Kentucky. So that makes it hard. That makes it very difficult. But that’s OK. We’re up for hard discussion and up for that decision. Pretty neat to be in a position to make a choice to play another year for the University of Kentucky and my old roommate or to play professional basketball. Not a bad spot for little Reed to be in, huh? Pretty cool.”

This might be viewed as an early blow to Pope’s coaching tenure, as he now has just one confirmed player on the 2024-25 roster, and it certainly would’ve been a major boost to pull an upset and keep Sheppard. But it also clears up any ambiguity and Pope can proceed with pursuing every available guard in the transfer portal with the promise of major available playing time. That job became even more urgent with Sheppard’s declaration.

(Photo: Jordan Prather / USA Today)