Vicky Graff Photo
If you are looking for the biggest surprise about Kentucky’s 4-0 run in the GLOBL Jam, it might have been the play of freshman guard Rob Dillingham.
No, he was not UK’s best player. He was not even one of the best five players in the four games.
However, what surprised me was his team-first attitude. He might not have played as much or as well as he wanted, but he said all the right things before and after games.
Why did that surprise me? Simple. There had been a lot of speculation about Dillingham’s attitude and the way he changed schools so often in high school.
He was regarded as one of the best offensive players in the 2022 recruiting class but averaged just 5.5 points and 3.5 assists per game in Canada, shot a team-low 31 percent from the field and seven players got more minutes than he did in the four games.
He played just 12 minutes in a win over Africa after getting only 10 minutes the previous game against Canada. He admitted it had “been a little while” since he played so few minutes after the Africa win but was not upset.
“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. (Wagner) was getting buckets. Reed (Sheppard) was getting buckets,” Dillingham said.
“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.”
His patience/attitude was rewarded in the gold medal game when Dillingham got to play 19 minutes, his highest total in Canada, and finished with eight points, three rebounds and three assists that included two key baskets in the fourth quarter.
“I was happy Rob played better,” Calipari said after the game. “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.”
