The Rob Dillingham experience takes center stage. And John Calipari is living with it.
Fans of the Rob Dillingham experience had plenty to immerse themselves in Tuesday night.
The Kentucky freshman scored 23 points, tops so far in his 14-game college career. The Wildcats beat Missouri 90-77 in their SEC home opener, a sixth straight win for the nation’s No. 6-ranked team. And though Dillingham led the way, it wasn’t quite that straightforward.
These two hours in Rupp Arena were yet another reminder of what makes the shifty, 6-foot-3 teenager from Hickory, North Carolina, one of the most watchable players in college basketball. And those two hours provided yet another lesson in patience for his 64-year-old Hall of Fame coach.
Dillingham’s first half was plenty eventful.
He found himself at the foul line 25 seconds after checking in alongside fellow super sub Reed Sheppard for the first time. He hit his first jumper 21 seconds after that. His 3-pointer a short time later gave the Cats their first double-digit lead. Another 3 not long after that — this one a calm-as-can-be catch-and-shoot from 27 feet — put Kentucky up 14, its largest lead until the game’s final minute. When he went to the bench for the final time in the first half — after picking up his second foul — Dillingham had accumulated 11 points in just eight minutes.
And when he entered the game for the first time in the second half, the show started up again.
His first shot attempt: a long 2-pointer that he knocked down with confidence. Then came two quick steals. Then a strong drive and two made free throws. On the next possession, he drew the defense to the middle of the court, then turned and whipped a one-handed bullet to D.J. Wagner, who sank a 3-pointer from the suddenly wide-open wing. The possession after that, Dillingham called 7-footer Ugonna Onyenso out for a screen, deftly dribbled around him and rattled in another 3-pointer.
And that’s when the other side of the Rob Dillingham experience took center stage.
He picked up his third foul on a reckless drive well away from the basket with 10:55 left. John Calipari took him out of the game and bent down to get in his face on the bench. About three minutes later, Dillingham trotted back to the scorer’s table. Three seconds after checking in, he committed foul No. 4, reaching in on a Missouri player who was no threat to score.
Out he came again, and this time Calipari was waiting for him.
The UK coach put both hands on Dillingham and held him there on the sideline, not about to let go until he was finished saying what he needed to say to the five-star recruit who just turned 19 years old five days earlier and was clearly upset at what was transpiring.
Calipari later explained that he’d already discussed body language with Dillingham, and — while he surely would have been coming out of the game at that point anyway — he didn’t like what he was seeing in the moment.
“Your body language screams,” Calipari said. “Just come out. … But when you’re the young team that we are, body language is that next thing. It was OK in AAU games to act like, ‘Why’d you take me out?’ You can’t do that now. And as you move in this sport, your body language screams. You can’t do it. And that’s why I grabbed him and why I talked to him after. But he knows I love him. I love coaching him. And I gotta take some of the stuff that he does and just …”
At this point, Calipari stopped talking and comically bit into his own hand. It was a physical display of what he’s been saying since the preseason. To let Rob be Rob, you have to take the bad with the good. And with Dillingham, there’s plenty of the latter.
“He’s as good as they get to go get baskets and get fouled,” Calipari finished.
Dillingham ended up with 23 points in just 19 minutes. It was his best scoring night in 14 games as a college player, yet he did it by tying a season low with just seven field goal attempts. He made six of those. He hit all three of his 3-point shots. He was 8-of-10 on free throws. He dazzled yet again, as only he can.
Around this time last season, Missouri beat Kentucky 89-75, a major victory for Dennis Gates in his first year as the Tigers’ head coach and one of the low points in UK’s 2022-23 campaign.
On Tuesday night, Gates reflected on how this Wildcats team differs from that one.
“I see some great one-on-one players who can make shots,” Gates said. “And we start with Rob Dillingham, who’s probably the best iso player in college basketball. That’s what I believe.”
Gates went on to mention several other UK players and what they bring to the table. He talked about how, without Oscar Tshiebwe — dominant as he could be — taking up space in the paint, this team is more suited to spread things out. And this team also has so many weapons in those five-out instances. And that kind of setup is a perfect one for someone like Dillingham, who can create space for himself in an instant and exploit any opening the defense gives him in a blink.
All of that was apparent Tuesday night.
And this game was one of the best examples yet of the learning experience that Dillingham is going through in what looks increasingly likely to be his only season as a college player.
He talked all preseason about trying to find the balance between making the right play and going too far, venturing off into that unknown territory of playmaking that must be so tantalizing for a player with Dillingham’s unique abilities. Calipari has talked about it plenty, too. The coach who has a reputation for a quick hook has said he knows he needs to give this freshman a little more leeway, an extra opportunity or two to mess around with the ball.
For both, this has been and will remain a process. They’re growing together.
“I definitely feel way comfortable now,” Dillingham said of his dynamic with Calipari. “At first, I looked at Coach as more of a celebrity. So I’d be nervous to say something. But now we have more of a relationship. So now I know — even if I do mess up — he still might take me out. But he still trusts me to play basketball. So I don’t really think about anything. I just play.”
Dillingham seemed irked at the times he was being subbed out. He was even a little short when talking about it after the game — the one in which he scored a career-high 23 points. But as he continued talking, he made it clear that he knows this is all part of the process.
Asked if he’d ever been coached like this before, Dillingham stopped to think. He said that one of his high school coaches — former North Carolina point guard Jeff McInnis, who spent a decade in the NBA — held him to a similar standard. He then thought a little more and realized the difference. When he was in high school, McInnis would get on him. But he could rarely afford to actually take him out of the game. Dillingham laughed.
“Now, I get taken out of the game, because we got so many dudes,” he said. “So I expect it, for sure. And I just try to learn from it.”
As far as the body language, Dillingham says he means no harm. He explained that, when he does get mad, the anger is almost always pointed inward, a feeling that he could have done better or a realization that he did indeed make a mistake. He said he thinks that’s necessary, to a degree — that if you don’t hold yourself accountable, you get complacent.
“And that’s where I’m growing right now,” he said.
Dillingham is still trying to find that line with his emotions on the court, just as he’s still looking for that same middle ground as a player, the area between making the right plays that lead to winning basketball and making the “Rob plays” that got him to this point.
In just two months, he’s rocketed up the NBA Draft charts, now considered a possible lottery pick after starting his college career with plenty of questions about how his size and skill might translate to the next level. He’s done it while coming off the bench. He’s done it while knowing he’s going to be held accountable by the man who controls the minutes.
“I definitely think Cal is perfect for me,” Dillingham said Tuesday night. “Because you’re not supposed to get everything you want. And he prepares you for the next level. And he’s put so many players at the next level — he’s even coached at the next level — so he knows what it takes. And he knows that it’s not all just basketball. It’s other things. You gotta get over your pride sometimes. He helps me with more than just basketball.”
But wherever this season goes from here, whatever strides Dillingham continues to make, Rob is still going to be Rob.
With Kentucky leading by nine points and about 2:30 remaining — the shot clock ticking toward zero — Dillingham had the ball on the perimeter and dribbled away from the basket. There was a collective groan in the Rupp crowd when the freshman lost his handle. He scrambled to retrieve the ball, turned around and heaved a prayer toward the rim as the buzzer sounded. It didn’t hit anything. Missouri got the ball. Calipari looked dumbfounded on the UK sideline.
Yet, he left Dillingham on the court, where he tallied an assist and hit 4 of 4 free throws as the Cats iced it.
Afterward, Dillingham was asked if he ever thinks about what Calipari will think while he’s playing. In those moments, does the young player weigh the possibility that he might be off to the bench if whatever he’s about to attempt goes amiss?
“When you think like that, that’s when you mess up,” he said. “That’s when it goes left. So I try not to think at all. I just play basketball. And if I mess up, then it’s my bad. And I’ll take responsibility.”
Next game
No. 6 Kentucky at Texas A&M
When: 2 p.m. EST Saturday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 12-2 (2-0 SEC), Texas A&M 9-6 (0-2)
Series: Kentucky leads 13-4
Last meeting: Kentucky won 76-67 on Jan. 21, 2023, in Lexington
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