Antonio Reeves Named a Finalist for Jerry West Award
Reeves leads the Wildcats with 20.0 points per game and 73 3-pointers
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky guard Antonio Reeves was named a finalist for the Jerry West Award on Tuesday. Reeves paces the Wildcats with 20.0 points per game and leads the Southeastern Conference, while ranking fourth nationally with a 44.2% 3-point clip.
Reeves is one of five finalists for the award honoring the nation’s best shooting guard. Caleb Love (Arizona), Kevin McCullar Jr. (Kansas), Tyson Walker (Michigan State) and RJ Davis (North Carolina) are the other finalists.
Fans can support Reeves by participating in fan voting, starting Friday on hoophallawards.com. The fan vote will count as one committee vote during the finalist selection process.
The annual Jerry West Award, named after the Class of 1980 Hall of Famer and 1959 NCAA Final Four Most Valuable Player, celebrates its 10th year by highlighting the top shooting guard in the country. Malik Monk (2017) is the only Kentucky player to earn the honor.
He is UK’s leading scorer at 20.0 points per game (in the John Calipari era, only Jamal Murray at 20.0 points per game averaged as much as Reeves). Reeves is tallying marks of 50.9% from the field, 44.2% from 3-point range and 87.6% from the free-throw line — all career bests. He is the only Power 5 player averaging at least 1.5 made 3-pointers and tallying at least .490% from the field, .435 from 3-point range and .865 from the charity stripe.
He tallied 30 points in a win at Louisville and followed that performance with 27 against Illinois State. He was just the fourth UK player to ever score 30 or more in the series vs. Louisville. With the 30-point effort at Louisville, Reeves joined Oscar Tshiebwe (4), Monk (4) and Murray (3) as the only players in the UK-Calipari era to have multiple games with 30 or more points.
Reeves has topped double-figure scoring in all but one game this season and eclipsed the 20-point plateau in 17 games. He is just the second UK player under Calipari to have 20-plus career 20-or-more scoring efforts in his career, joining 2022 National Player of the Year, Tshiebwe, in that category. Eleven of his 27 career 20-plus point scoring efforts have come on the road.
The Chicago native has scored 20 or more in five straight games, including 22 in a win against Arkansas on Saturday. That’s the longest streak of 20-point efforts for a UK player since Murray did so in 12 games in 2016.
Against Georgia, he eclipsed 2,000 career points combining his time at Illinois State and at Kentucky. As a Wildcat, he became the 62nd player in program history to amass 1,000 career points with 25 at LSU. He is one of three active players and 10 all-time to tally 1,000 career points at two different programs.
In two seasons with UK, Reeves has scored 1,068 points. The most in a two-year span as a Wildcat is 1,213 by Bill Spivey. Tshiebwe (1,117) is in second.
In his career with UK, he has 53 double-digit scoring games, 41 games with multiple made 3s, 27 20-point games and eight games with five or more made 3s.
The Cats are back in action on Wednesday as they play host to Vanderbilt for a 9 p.m. ET. tip from Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. The game will air nationally on SEC Network.
For the latest on the Kentucky men’s basketball team, follow @KentuckyMBB on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram andTikTok, and on the web at UKathletics.com.