John Calipari speaks about big game from Reed Sheppard vs. Mississippi State

Kentucky freshman guard Reed Sheppard had a performance for the ages on Tuesday night. But it was almost undone in the final moments.

In a one-possession game on the road against Mississippi State, Sheppard dribbled himself into a bad spot against a press and tried to throw a long pass. Kentucky was leading by three with :24 to play, and the Bulldogs managed to cash in a pair of free throws on the possession.

“Well, I was about to choke him when he threw the ball deep and they get to the foul line,” Wildcats head coach John Calipari said after the game. “And I’m looking like, ‘Why would you do that? You’ve got two foul shooters, either one will make free throws and you throw one deep.’ He was trying to do the high school, I’m going to dribble it and dribble it and dribble it and all of a sudden he’s like, ‘Oh no.'”

Sheppard undid whatever ire from his coach quickly thereafter, right after Bulldogs guard Josh Hubbard hit a 3 with less than 10 seconds remaining to give Mississippi State a one-point lead.

After fellow freshman DJ Wagner drove down the court and into the paint, he turned and kicked the ball out to Sheppard, who drove into the now partially collapsed defense and floated up a game winner with less than a second on the clock.

It capped off a 32 point performance for Reed, in which he added seven assists, fives rebounds, and a pair each of blocks and steals.

And Calipari, seeing what Sheppard did, doesn’t want to hear it from fans who thought his end game management needed work. He was happy to let his players work. Sheppard rewarded him for it.

“But, told the team after, he had — he plays to win,” Calipari said. “He’s not playing not to lose. There will be some ‘Why didn’t you call a timeout?’ Because of what just happened. They can’t set up their defense. They had no timeouts. And you look at DJ and say ‘Make something happen.’ And the ball ends up in Reed’s hand and he goes and makes it and we win the game. So I always have done that. I’m not calling a timeout in those situations. It was too early to foul a 3-point shooter. Can’t foul them with 16, 17 seconds to go. ‘You should’ve fouled anyway.’ Stop.

“Let me coach the team, you enjoy these games. It’s too early. He makes the 3, but we got eight seconds. So now we come down and end up winning the game.”