The Kentucky Wildcats have dominated SEC basketball since its inception and that includes the SEC Tournament which first began back in 1933. Kentucky won that inaugural tournament under Adolph Rupp, in the program’s first 20-win season, and the Wildcats have won 30 other SEC Tournament titles since then for a total of 31.
The Tournament went away from 1953-78 but returned in 1979 and from that point on, the league has awarded a tournament MVP. Despite Tennessee taking that 1979 tournament title, Kentucky’s Kyle Macy won the MVP, the first of 19 Wildcats to take home the award. Florida has the second most SEC Tournament MVPs with five since 1979.
This season, Kentucky enters the SEC Tournament as the No. 2 seed, behind regular season outright champion Tennessee, who the Wildcats downed on Saturday, 85-81 in Knoxville. Antonio Reeves and Reed Sheppard both finished with 27 points, though Sheppard added five assists. The senior and the freshman will likely be Kentucky’s top two MVP candidates if John Calipari’s team makes a run through the SEC Tournament to win Cal’s seventh conference crown.
Through the regular season, Reeves scored a team-high 20.2 points a game while Sheppard finished the year averaging 12.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 2.5 steals on 54/53/84 shooting splits.
Either Reeves or Sheppard could be next to join this list of every Kentucky basketball SEC Tournament MVP since 1979.
- Kyle Macy, 1979
- Dirk Minniefield, 1982
- Rex Chapman, 1988
- Jamal Mashburn, 1992
- Travis Ford, 1993
- Travis Ford, 1994
- Antoine Walker, 1995
- Ron Mercer, 1997
- Wayne Turner, 1998
- Scott Padgett, 1999
- Tayshaun Prince, 2001
- Keith Bogans, 2003
- Gerald Fitch, 2004
- John Wall, 2010
- Darius Miller, 2011
- Willie Cauley-Stein, 2015
- Tyler Ulis, 2016
- De’Aaron Fox, 2017
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 2018