A quiet trip to Canada, but a loud game. Rob Dillingham ‘gonna be fine’ for Kentucky.
For the most part, Kentucky’s trip to Canada to play four exhibition games against international competition at the GLOBL JAM was a plus for the most highly touted members of the Wildcats’ No. 1-ranked recruiting class.
D.J. Wagner and Justin Edwards showed plenty of the potential that already has them projected as lottery picks in next year’s NBA Draft. Kentucky native and fellow McDonald’s All-American Reed Sheppard drew praise from teammates and John Calipari, everyone lauding his basketball smarts, unselfish approach (he led the team in assists at the GLOBL JAM) and the UK coach specifically pointing out his ability to make things happen defensively.
And then there was Rob Dillingham, long considered one of the very best offensive players in the 2023 recruiting class. For Dillingham, the trip to Toronto for the GLOBL JAM was a quiet one. He averaged just 5.5 points and 3.5 assists per game, shot a team-low 31.0 percent from the floor and played the eighth-most minutes (even less time spent on the court than Jordan Burks, a late addition to the Cats’ recruiting class).
Yet, Dillingham was all smiles during the week. And his comments after Saturday’s win — a third consecutive game of frustration, from an individual standpoint — caught Calipari’s attention.
He played just 12 minutes in that one — a 102-90 victory over Africa — after seeing the court for just 10 minutes the previous game (a 93-69 win over Canada). Asked the last time he had to sit around that much and watch his team play from the bench, Dillingham kept a positive attitude.
“It’s been a little while,” he acknowledged. “But honestly it’s just trusting Coach Cal and knowing the process. Like, maybe today wasn’t my day, and obviously the people that were in the game … D.J. was getting buckets. Reed was getting buckets. So I wasn’t really having a problem sitting on the bench. I want to get in the game, but it’s like, ‘If they’re playing better, why would I force myself to be mad?’ Because we’re a team.”
Dillingham played 19 minutes in UK’s 89-72 victory over Canada on Sunday night, the most run he got all week. He still struggled, but he tallied eight points, three rebounds and three assists, including a brief scoring flurry at the end of the third quarter to give the Cats some breathing room down the stretch.
“I was happy Rob played better,” Calipari said afterward. “You know, his comments yesterday, I played to the team, because they were very mature, adult comments. ‘I wanna play more. I gotta play better. But the reality of it is those two played better than me.’ Yeah. They really did.
“Just so you know … 10 days before this (GLOBL JAM) he was killing Reed and D.J. And I huddled the team and I just said, ‘It was only 10 days in, you were killing those guys. What changed?’ Your state of mind has changed.”
The transition from high school to college basketball is tough for any freshman — no matter the talent level or upside — but Dillingham, in particular, seemed destined for a bit of a rocky road.
He’s officially listed at 6-foot-2 and just 160 pounds, though the real numbers might make him even smaller. Throughout his high school career, that was enough size — when matched with his unique ability to slice through defenders and take lightning-quick shots from just about anywhere on the court — to get whatever he wanted offensively.
That won’t be the case in college, where Dillingham will face a much longer and stronger brand of defender every time he steps on the floor. He got a taste of that in Toronto, where all three opposing teams featured players with high-level college size and experience.
UK assistant Bruiser Flint said on the pregame radio show before Sunday’s finale against Canada that Dillingham had missed some tough shots all tournament long. That was to be expected.
“One thing about small guys — because I was one myself — when you’re used to getting to the basket, you have to take what they’re giving you sometimes,” Flint said. “We’ve been telling him, ‘Hey, shoot the pull-up.’ It’s a little bit different — the size, the strength of the guys, they’re on him a little bit — but we’ve said, ‘If you’re open on the pull-up, shoot the pull-up.’ Because he shoots that. That’s probably his best shot.
“So we just told him, ‘Don’t worry about it. We know you’re missing a lot of shots. Don’t get frustrated.’”
Dillingham at Kentucky
While Dillingham moves toward acclimating the best characteristics of his game to college basketball, his coaches will have some figuring out to do, too.
Calipari acknowledged as much after game one.
“He needs some space to let himself go some, and I’m gonna let him,” he said.
Where a taller, stronger point guard like Wagner could still get to the rim and finish against bigger GLOBL JAM competition, Dillingham couldn’t. Where a long, athletic wing like Edwards could use his unique blend of skill and size to create opportunities for himself off the bounce, Dillingham struggled.
His game is much more predicated on dribble moves at the perimeter, getting defenders off balance and attacking them when they do. The 24-second shot clock at GLOBL JAM (played under FIBA rules) made playing that way a little more difficult. So did the bigger, stronger competition.
“I’ve got to get him to where he knows when to go and when to just get rid of it,” Calipari said after game two. “But he’s gonna be fine.”
Dillingham has shown enough creativity in the past to think there will be plenty of highlights in his immediate future, hence the lack of worry on UK’s end. He’s crafty with the basketball in his hands and should be able to create space and scoring chances for himself off the ball, as well. Calipari also said last week that he “fights like heck on defense” — a bit of a question mark coming in and something he’ll need to do to stay on the court for the Kentucky coach.
Calipari is often quick with the hook, especially for young players who take an ill-advised shot or have a defensive breakdown. Dillingham hasn’t seen that side of his new coach, however, saying before the Canada trip that Calipari wasn’t stopping any practices to call out bad shots.
“He doesn’t really stop it like that,” he said. “But he’ll tell you later, like, ‘If you shoot that shot, you’re gonna come out of the game. Unless you make it. Then if you make it, I’ll give you a pat on the butt. But you better hit those type shots.’”
Dillingham said in Toronto that the freedom makes it easier for players like him to find their way.
“It’s way easier, because, like, a lot of people don’t have a rope, so it’s like you play scared, and you’re scared of coming out of the game,” he said. “Playing with Coach Cal, he gives you confidence to just play however you play, and whoever’s playing the best is going to play. So it’s definitely easy playing for him.”
Calipari will undoubtedly tighten things up as the summer turns to fall and November nears, but it’s apparent that the UK coach will be willing to give his young guys a little more leeway this season. Still, Dillingham knows he’ll need to change his own game, too. That means not taking those “crazy shots” — as he called them — that he sometimes attempted in high school. It also means playing a more unselfish style, and he seems totally fine with that.
In that first victory over Canada on Thursday night, Dillingham played just 10 minutes, but he managed to dish out eight assists with just one turnover in that span. For the tournament, his 14 assists in 68 minutes was a rate surpassed only by Sheppard (23 assists in 86 minutes), and Dillingham had just five turnovers at the GLOBL JAM, giving him one of the best ratios on the team.
The other growing pains in Canada won’t be completely solved over the course of the offseason, and there will probably be games when Dillingham does more sitting and watching than playing, but — if he continues to buy in to a new brand of basketball — the unique scoring and playmaking ability he has at his disposal should be on display quite a bit for the Wildcats.
Realizing when to unleash those skills — and when to take a more cautious approach — will be a key to his development. It’s a fine line to walk for someone who has had so much offensive freedom to this point.
“Definitely worked a lot on it. And really I’m still working on it,” Dillingham said. “Just understanding what are good shots and what’s not good shots. And really I just gotta be more comfortable out there and take the shots that I feel I can shoot.”
He’s never really had to worry about that before. It makes for a whole new challenge.
“But this will help me at the next level.”
