Daimion Collins fails to see the floor against Georgia

Saturday night’s 92-77 win over Georgia was scattered with feel-good moments for the ‘Cats. TyTy Washington cruised by John Wall for the single-game assist record. Oscar nearly out-rebounded Georgia by himself while also adding 29 points. Kentucky pulled away towards the end of the second half, providing a perfect opportunity to get reserve players such as Daimion Collins some minutes as the blowout wound down.

Or at least we thought.

Where was Daimion Collins?

Seconds before John Calipari finished his postgame media session, he quickly touched on a topic that a lot of the BBN was wondering about last night.

“I wish I could’ve played Bryce [Hopkins] more. I didn’t play Daimion [Collins] at all,” John Calipari said. “But here’s the thing, and I told Daimion and Lance [Ware] after, if this kid [Oscar Tshiebwe] goes for 29 and 17 do you really expect to play 20 minutes?”

20 minutes? No, we’re not asking for that much. We haven’t seen Daimion Collins play more than 20 minutes since the end of November. Maybe more than zero would work, though.

John Calipari was quick to use the dominant play of Tshiebwe last night as a reason why Collins and others didn’t see much time.

“You got to know if he’s in foul trouble, there’s your chance. He’s not playing well, there’s your chance,” Calipari mentioned after the game. “I wish I could’ve gotten those two (Hopkins and Collins) in because we do need those two.”

That seems to make sense on first listen, Damion Collins and others struggled to get in because of how dominant Tshiebwe was all game. Okay, fair. Only thing is that it seems to contradict a pretty obvious trend.

Minutes have disappeared for Collins

Damion Collins saw at least 13 minutes in six of the first eight games to start the regular season. The outliers were the Duke game, where he was only in for one minute, and the win over Ohio. Tshiebwe has been dominating since the beginning of the year but Collins was still getting minutes then.

While not consistently putting up numbers, the flashes of brilliance have been evident from the start.

DAMION COLLINS THUNDER pic.twitter.com/eIDoyttrFC

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) November 13, 2021

Collins had 14 points and four blocks against Robert Morris then 12 points and six rebounds in 25 minutes against North Florida. The caveat is that these performances were coming against lower-tier talent and in late-game situations with the game already decided, so we take that into account.

However, Daimion Collins was showing enough and still making enough “wow” plays that warranted him being in the lineup once Kentucky went up against better competition. Calipari has been reluctant to do so as of late.

Ever since seeing just three minutes in the Notre Dame loss, Collins has only topped more than 10 minutes in a game once. He’s only scored 12 total points since December 11, six of those coming in the win over High Point.

It’s becoming clear that Calipari just doesn’t trust Collins against better competition at this point, which appears to be completely fair from the outside looking in. He’s the one who sees DaimiCollinson play every day too; maybe he knows that he’s not ready to go up against the best yet?

But Georgia also isn’t very good. We think it’s fair to say that Kentucky would’ve still beat the Bulldogs if 5-7 of those Tshiebwe minutes went to Daimion Collins, particularly down the stretch. It’s pretty clear that the freshman needs the minutes and experience, as Calipari has said previously; games like this are some of the best chances to do so.

The trend doesn’t look great for the future

If this is how it’s going to be in the SEC for Daimion Collins, we may be arguing online for a while.

It was already clear that Calipari doesn’t trust him yet against big competition. He saw a combined nine minutes against the ACC trio of Duke, Notre Dame and North Carolina. That trend has continued heading into SEC play.

Collins played five minutes against Missouri before being thrown out against LSU for a whole nine minutes due to injuries around the team. Collins not getting in a single moment against Georgia doesn’t bode well for the near future.

Kentucky soon starts an absolutely brutal run of SEC competition with a game against Kansas sandwiched in at the end of January. Unless Calipari drastically changes his rotations or the ‘Cats start losing again, I’m not sure we’re going to see a lot of Daimion Collins coming up.