Fans excited as Jeff Sheppard made his final return with full commitment to Kentucky wildcat to help Mark Pope.

Fans excited as Jeff Sheppard made his final return with full commitment to Kentucky wildcat to help Mark Pope….

Jeff Sheppard was standing in — of all places — Rupp Arena on Thursday night, when the news started to trickle out.

Mark Pope was in line to be the next men’s basketball coach at Kentucky.

 

By the next morning, the giddiness of the moment still hadn’t worn o

ff.

 

I’m pumped up. I’m so excited. This is going to be awesome,” Sheppard said early Friday morning, the emotion in his voice suggesting an ear-to-ear smile on the other end of the line.

“Excited” was clearly an understatement, but it was the word Sheppard used several times to describe the joy he felt over the course of the evening as it became clear that Pope — his former UK teammate, roommate and longtime friend — was about to take over the basketball program that brought them together more than three decades ago.

Pope was officially announced Friday as the new head coach of the Wildcats, and his old friend couldn’t be happier.

Sheppard — a two-time national champion at UK and the Most Outstanding Player of the 1998 Final Four — was in Rupp on Thursday as part of “The Reed Sheppard Experience,” a camp event headlined by his son, the reigning national freshman of the year and second-generation Kentucky basketball superstar.

 

While consumed by the event, Sheppard was obviously distracted by the news happening outside the building where he and Pope had led the Wildcats to so many great moments.

 

“As the night went on and it looked like it was going to happen, I just got more and more excited about it,” he said.

 

Once the camp was finished — and before Pope’s hiring was official — Sheppard had more time to take in what was about to happen to the program that has meant so much to his family.