‘I didn’t know if I was good enough ... to play at Kentucky’: The evolution of a UK basketball recruit

Two summers ago, Immanuel Quickley was at a USA Basketball training camp in Colorado Springs when he first made contact with the coaching staff at the University of Kentucky.

It was June 15 — the date every year when college coaches are allowed to personally reach out to rising high school juniors — and Quickley, like pretty much every talented player in his recruiting class, started getting calls and texts at the stroke of midnight.

One of the very first coaches to inquire in the wee hours was UK’s Joel Justus.

Now, Quickley is a future Wildcat. Then, he was an uncertain 16-year-old kid.

“I didn’t know if I was good enough, at the time, to play at Kentucky,” Quickley said Tuesday, sipping on a blue Powerade and sitting at a table in the basement of Philips Arena, one day before he was set to step on an NBA court as a McDonald’s All-American.

UK’s coaches didn’t know whether he was good enough either. But they wanted him to know they were watching.

Quickley made the team he was trying out for during that trip to Colorado Springs, and he represented USA Basketball at a FIBA event in Spain later that summer.

Justus made the trip. So did John Calipari.

“The first impression that I had of Immanuel from Spain was that he could play multiple positions in the backcourt,” Justus told the Herald-Leader last week. “And he was a guy who guarded one of the better players when his rotation went in. And, in the rotation he was with, he played with (Collin) Sexton. On that team, Collin handled the ball most of the time and Immanuel was off the ball, so you could see how he played in a system with another really good point guard. You could see how he played where he created shots for other people. He didn’t need to have an impact on the game with the ball in his hands.

“Then when you saw him with his team — when he had the ball in his hands a majority of the time — you saw how his first look was to create for others. He knows this — and I would say this if he was standing here — but his jump shot was not what it is today. But it looked like it could become better. And when we talked with him, that was the biggest thing that we talked about.”

Two years later, Quickley remembers that conversation well. He also really wanted that scholarship offer from the Wildcats. And he knew what the UK coaches were saying was true.

“I’m really hard on myself and critical of what I need to work on, my weaknesses,” Quickley said. “And, at the time, that was really one of my weaknesses. So I went that summer and through that fall and fixed it up. And I’m still getting better. Still working on it every day. You can never be perfect.”

Quickley — a 6-foot-3 point guard from Bel Air, Md., not far from Baltimore — said his release point was too low when he was younger. That flaw was identified, Quickley raised his shot, and then it was all about repetition.

He shot. And shot. And shot some more.

When Justus watched him a few months later, Quickley was a different player.

“When I saw him again in the fall, holy cow, it had improved so much,” the UK assistant said. “And that’s when we brought Cal in and decided, ‘All right, this is the one to make the move on.’”

Quickley was the first point guard in the class of 2018 to receive a UK scholarship offer, always an important step for a head coach who has built a reputation on getting the best players at that position and then getting them to the NBA.

The high school junior knew he was better that fall than the first time the UK coaches had watched him, but he still wasn’t confident that offer was coming.

Calipari made the trip to Maryland that October for a visit.

“I didn’t know if I was going to get that offer,” Quickley said. “But Coach Cal laid out a really good presentation for me and my family and my coach. And when we saw that, we were just like, ‘Wow.’

“Kind of how they saw me, I saw them. So it was a good fit.”

There were other schools on his list — Kansas and Miami were the other two finalists; Maryland was in the mix — but from that point on, Kentucky was seen as the clear favorite in his recruitment.

He committed to the Cats last August and signed with the program in November.

Quickley was UK’s first commitment from the class of 2018, but his role on next season’s squad remains a bit of a mystery.

The Cats are expected to bring back freshman Quade Green, who began the season as the team’s starting point guard before switching to a more off-the-ball role toward the end of the year. The freshman who took Green’s place in the lineup, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, is projected as a first-round NBA Draft pick but has not yet declared his stay-or-go intentions.

Kentucky is also still looking at other backcourt options to fill out its 2018 class.

Quickley isn’t concerned about who he might be sharing the court with in Lexington next season. He’s said in the past he’d be happy to play alongside a player like Green, and he’s said he doesn’t mind playing off the ball if it makes the team better. That mentality also attracted UK’s coaches.

“He’s a guy that can play with other really good players, wants to play with other really good players and is comfortable in a setting where guys are really talented,” Justus said. “He wants to be a pro. … That’s why he wanted to come here. He’s a guy who knows that if you want to play in the NBA — just like a lot of the guys who come to Kentucky — you’ve got to learn how to play with really good players and be able to play multiple positions.

“And, at the same time, take advantage of your opportunities when the time comes.”

Quickley, who spent last summer being coached by Calipari with the USA Basketball U19 squad that traveled to Egypt, averaged 20.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, 6.7 assists and 3.7 steals as a high school senior this past season.

On Monday night — in an affirmation, of sorts, of his improvement as an outside shooter — Quickley entered and won the McDonald’s All-American three-point contest. “I knew I was going to win. I knew I was going to win,” he said the next day with a smile. “I put a lot of work in the gym. … I had confidence in what I was doing.”

Two years ago, Quickley wasn’t confident that he had what it took to be a Wildcat.

Now, he’s ready — and able — to help the Cats wherever they need him.

“Versatility is what I bring to the game,” he said. “I’m long. I can play defense, offense, rebound, all that stuff. Just playing versatile — that’s where the basketball game is going. So, if you can do multiple things on the court, you can get on the floor.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 8:23 AM with the headline "‘I didn’t know if I was good enough ... to play at Kentucky’: The evolution of a UK basketball recruit."