Rob Dillingham on Antonio Reeves: "He might be the best shooter I ever, ever, ever met."

Rob Dillingham might only be a college freshman, but the former five-star high school recruit has played with plenty of talented hoopers in his young life. And yet he’s never met a better shooter than Antonio Reeves.

“He might be the best shooter I ever, ever, ever met. I ain’t gonna lie,” Dillingham said after Kentucky beat Illinois State 96-70 on Friday night. “I’ve done seen some shooters and I’ve done played with some shooters, but Tone’s shot is — I ain’t gonna lie, he’s nice. He can’t guard me, but…”

I’m not quite sure of every single person that Dillingham has ever met, but that certainly sounds like high praise. And tough praise to argue against, too. Reeves dropped 27 points against Illinois State — his former team — while shooting 10-18 from the field and 4-8 from long range. His performance came eight days after his previous outing against Louisville when he poured in 30 points.

Antonio Reeves is the 3rd different @KentuckyMBB player in the @UKCoachCalipari era to score at least 27 points in consecutive games (Malik Monk, Oscar Tshiebwe)

— Corey Price (@coreyp08) December 30, 2023

Reeves didn’t luck into 57 combined points across his last two games though. There was plenty of work going on behind the scenes. Over one thousand shots worth of work, actually. Kentucky head coach John Calipari said after the win that Reeves took 1,400 shots in the Joe Craft Center gym on Thursday, 400 of them coming after dinner.

“Yeah something like that,” Reeves said with a laugh. “I went back in the gym after we got done yesterday. If I don’t feel like I got up enough shots then I’ll go back in the gym.”

“I’m not gonna lie, in practice he makes every shot. I’m not surprised at all (by Reeves’ recent performances),” Dillingham added. “Tone’s a shooter, he’s a scorer. Even when he can’t hit threes, he hits spin move floaters and I don’t know how it goes in but it goes in. It don’t surprise me at all.”

The scoring numbers sure do stand out for Reeves. The fifth-year senior is averaging a team-high 19 points per game on shooting splits of 52.3/45.9/84.2 — career-highs in all three categories. But he’s developing into an all-around player along the way. Calipari praised Reeves’ defense and rebounding — he had six on Friday — following UK’s win over Illinois State.

“How about he was guarding their best player?” Calipari said. “Last year he would guard their worst player and we hoped he had black socks on that guy because now he is our best perimeter defender.”

Reeves has now hit the 20-point mark six times in 12 games this season. Only once has he failed to register at least double-digits. He’s knocked down at least one three-pointer in every game, too. Dillingham might be onto something…

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