Wednesday, January 19, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Back in October, the prospects of freshman Kowacie Reeves climbing the depth chart over veterans with, in some cases, a hundred or more games on their collegiate resumes, seemed remote. Even for a prospect who arrived with fanfare that placed him among the nation's top 30 or 40 players in his signing class.
No one understood this as well as Reeves. Literally.
"If I'm sitting on the bench during the game thinking, 'Man, I haven't gotten in the whole first half,' I'm already missing out on the game. I won't be ready if I do get in. I won't be able to just jump up when my name's called and be locked into the game. I need to be focused on the sidelines and encouraging my teammates. That way, when my opportunity comes, I'm already tuned in and ready to jump in."
Heading into Southeastern Conference play almost three weeks ago, Reeves was averaging 3.4 points and 11.0 minutes per game, mostly in mop-up time, with four DNPs. Arguably the best pure shooter on the team, Reeves was making under 30 percent of his field-goal attempts and just shy of 31 percent from the 3-point line. Nobody outside the UF practice facility, with the exception of his family back in Macon, Ga., could have possibly known if Reeves was walking the walk of his preseason talk. He was.
Each day, Reeves got his individual work in (hundreds of shots) and showed up at practice with the idea of competing against teammates and getting better. Getting ready for that time he knew was coming.
It came last week with a pair of starts and the results began paying off in Saturday's road win at South Carolina, where Reeves scored a team-high 14 points, hit four of six shots and two of three from long distance, plus four of five free throws. His two early buckets, one of them a 3-pointer, helped his team settle in and provided a huge pick-me-up in winning the first Southeastern Conference victory of the season.
Now comes a Wednesday night home date when Reeves and the Gators (10-6, 1-3) will try put together their first win streak in conference play against Mississippi State (12-4, 3-1) at Exactech Arena. Reeves, meantime, again figures to be on the floor for the opening tip and continue on a path some his teammates saw coming as much as he did.
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
"I feels good. I mean, I'm lost for words, honestly," Reeves said after the win Saturday. "Because of lot of the guys on the team, like [Anthony Duruji] and [Colin Castleton], they were telling me and comparing their freshmen years and telling me how things were just up and down and bumpy for them at first, but they just encouraged me to just keep pushing on, keep working, paying attention to every detail and just be engaged on defense. That's what was going to keep me on the floor. Once I did get those things it started to come together, and I fed off those guys."
And vise versa.
Kowacie Reeves(14) is consistently one of the best shooters during practice and it's starting to spill over into games, with three makes in five attempts from deep the last two games. Yes, it's a small sample size, but the freshman's confidence is growing.
Reeves' is an approach, a mindset, that is rare for a player who came in with his credentials, but it was the mentality he used as a high school freshman during his climb to elite prep status. It worked back then, so he decided to make it work now.
"He was trying to take minutes, trying to make 'Coach play me' every day," Gators coach Mike White said. "He's gotten to where he's developed enough that he's earned those minutes, and while he's out there he's doing some stuff that makes it hard to take him out. His consistency, he's been able to hang his hat on and it is certainly unique for someone in terms of his maturity level."
That maturity is matched by his humility.
"He works, I want to say, harder than most. He's always in the gym. He doesn't care if he's not playing, doesn't care if he is playing. He's going to get in the gym," grad-transfer wing Phlandrous Fleming Jr. said. "I think the game rewards that. I think the game rewards people who work hard and don't listen to the outside crowd and don't listen to their family and just stay the course and keep going. That's what Kowacie did and it's going to pay off big this year and even more in his future — and he has a bright, bright, bright future."
After the team's first win, UF coach Mike White headed home to watch some of the late SEC games, particularly Mississippi State's eventual victory Saturday night against No. 25 Alabama. While there he speaking on the phone to a support staff member back at the practice facility. From the office, the person heard a basketball being dribbled on the court. They went to check it out.
It was Reeves, mere hours after what would have to be considered a breakout performance, back in the building to get some shots up.
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