Mark Pope makes strategic 'shepherd' reference, crowd chants 'one more year' for Reed Sheppard

Hand it to new Kentucky coach Mark Pope, he knows what one of the first orders of business is in the Bluegrass State. And that’s retaining fabulous freshman Reed Sheppard.

Pope craftily worked a message into his opening remarks that alluded to Sheppard, who is the son of Jeff Sheppard, a former teammate of Pope’s at Kentucky on the 1996 national title team.

“I believe these players, man, our job as coaches is we get to be shepherds,” Pope said, seemingly innocuous enough.

The arena erupted at the obvious connection to Reed, and the cameras filming the event for the masses watching online immediately panned over to Jeff Sheppard, who was getting one heck of a kick out of it on the arena floor.

Then something even more magical happened.

The entire arena took up a chant of “one more year.” It was shades of Florida fans doing the same at a national championship celebration with Tim Tebow in early 2009.

“Sometimes no words are the most powerful words of all,” Mark Pope said after nearly a minute-long pause for the roar and the chants.

Reed Sheppard??? pic.twitter.com/98EyTji3cG

— Rare Rookies #BBN (@rarerookies) April 14, 2024

Sheppard would be a key piece to start building around for Pope. He averaged 12.5 points, 4.5 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game during his freshman season at Kentucky.

He was one of the nation’s best shooters, hitting at a 52.1% clip from 3-point range.

And what Mark Pope will have going for him is a solid relationship with Sheppard’s father, who will have a pretty good idea what his son is getting into if he does stick around for another season.

“Shep and I were roommates for a lot of time, so we can do that to each other a little bit,” Pope said. “But to be a shepherd to these guys. It is, when you come to Kentucky it just rips you open. Your insides get exposed, your whole guts are out there and you get to rebuild yourself with your teammates and your staff and become something new and better that changes your life forever. And we get to shepherd guys through that.”

Pope plans to be a developer and a mentor to his players, much in the same way coach Rick Pitino was to him at Kentucky. He’ll do that with or without Sheppard, though he is obviously hoping it’s the former.

“These players are my job to coach and shepherd and our job to love,” Mark Pope said. “And for every player, for every player, I wish that they could come experience something like this. There’s nothing better and you can’t get it anywhere else besides Kentucky. There’s nowhere else you can go. There’s nowhere else.”