Antonio Reeves' growth at Illinois State prepared him for Kentucky

Antonio Reeves is nearly two years removed from playing his college basketball at Illinois State, but he won’t forget his time with the Redbirds anytime soon. Those three seasons he spent before coming to Kentucky helped build him into the 18-point-per-game scorer he is right now. Now a fifth-year senior, Reeves credits his impressive scoring abilities to what he learned at Illinois State.

“My growth (at Illinois State) has been one of the key points of me being here right now,” Reeves said on Thursday. “Just staying focused and staying humble as a person. Being able to stay in the gym every day and work on my game. It definitely improved over time. One thing is my sophomore year, I declared for the (NBA) draft to test the waters and I ended up going out to Miami to work out with pro trainers. It really made my game skyrocket to another level. My junior year, I went ballistic. So I definitely had a great season that year and that’s why I’m here now.”

In a full-circle moment, Reeves and Kentucky will host the Redbirds at Rupp Arena on Friday night. Members of the Reeves crew will be in attendance. He was even in his hometown of Chicago for Christmas break to be with his family, so he won’t be going long before seeing them again. Reeves actually still talks with a few of his former teammates at Illinois State, but Friday’s game will be all business.

“Just playing the same way, staying focused. Staying with the game plan that we have,” Reeves said. “Of course it’s my old team but I try not to go all-out and go wild out there, nothing like that. I just have to stay poised and stay the pace.

“I’m playing my old team, so I’m really excited about it and happy about it.”

Reeves was an unheralded three-star prospect out of Simeon (IL) High School before landing at Illinois State. He averaged just 7.2 points per game as a freshman in 2019-20. He improved that number to 12.4 as a sophomore but exploded to 20.1 points per game as a junior, leading to an All-Missouri Valley Confernce honor in ’21-22. Reeves finished with just under 1,200 points while suiting up for the Redbirds.

From there, he was worthy of a look from Kentucky, where he ultimately landed ahead of the ’22-23 season. After winning SEC Sixth Man of the Year, he returned to UK for one final run in ’23-24. He’s now playing the best basketball of his life, averaging 18.3 points and 4.2 rebounds per outing on shooting splits of 50.7/45.5/82.9 — all career-highs.

Reeves will face off against the team that helped make those numbers possible in roughly 24 hours. Tipoff between Kentucky and Illinois State is set for 7:30 p.m. EST on the SEC Network.

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