Kentucky's competitive practices are contributing to the Daimion Collins leap

The talk of the Kentucky men’s basketball offseason has been that of Daimion Collins‘s apparent leap. An up-and-down freshman season with the Wildcats led to him returning for a sophomore year in Lexington, where expectations have ramped up just a bit for the 19-year-old with a 46.5-inch vertical. During Kentucky’s trip to the Bahamas in August, Collins looked like a brand new player — one who could fulfill his five-star, high school potential as an eventual first-round NBA Draft pick.

Across four games on that foreign trip over the summer, Collins averaged 10.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks in 20.5 minutes per game across four contests. He shot 17-28 (60.7 percent) from the field overall and 6-7 from the free throw line. Highlight plays — be it dunks or blocks — were a multi-game occurrence for him. Collins then posted 10 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and a pair of blocks in the Blue-White Game.

This transformation certainly didn’t happen overnight though. Collins has been living in the gym as he adds to his game. There’s no better place to improve your skillset than by doing so in practice every single day behind closed doors — that’s exactly where Collins has quietly made his leap.

In fact, there might not be a player on the roster more dedicated to improving his game in practice than the native of Texas.

During Kentucky’s 2022 Media Day on Tuesday afternoon, a massive chart was located on one of the walls in the Joe Craft Center practice gym. It was labeled with the names of every player on the team and the words “DEFENSIVE & HUSTLE PLAYER OF THE DAY” plastered at the very top. Players are given stickers for being either the Defensive or Hustle Player of the Day for that practice.

Collins noticeably had more stickers next to his name than any of his teammates, and by a pretty wide margin.

Collins has won Defensive Player of the Day five times and Hustle Player of the Day four times throughout the month of October, which still has a few more days to go before November kicks in. No other Wildcat holds more than one Defensive Player of the Day honor while Sahvir Wheeler is the only ‘Cat with multiple Hustle Player of the Day recognitions (four). Collins even had a streak going at the beginning of the month where he won Hustle Player of the Day three practices in a row.

“It’s just going out and practicing hard, doing what you’ve got to do on the defensive end,” Collins said at Media Day about the chart. “I just go in and practice hard, get rebounds, block shots, stuff like that.”

As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. Collins is taking that saying to heart and the results are showing up on the chart.

“He’s been unbelievable, getting pretty much every rebound, hustling, he has every single award you can have up there. It’s fun playing with him,” Kentucky freshman guard Cason Wallace said of Collins.

“It’s very consistent,” Kentucky senior forward Jacob Toppin added. “He’s very disruptive on the defensive end, getting blocks, getting a lot of rebounds, so he’s definitely been really good in practice.”

This development shouldn’t come as much of a shock, though. Collins came to Kentucky with seemingly unlimited potential. His head coach, John Calipari, is throwing around the Kevin Durant comparison. Collins’s new one-dribble pull-up jump shot is going to make him an incredibly tough guard. The loaded springs in his shoes haven’t gone anywhere, either.

“Daimion rebounds and blocks shots, he’s got a 200-inch vertical. He should be able to lead us in rebounds and blocks,” Wheeler, Kentucky’s senior starting point guard, said with a smile.

Collins has been producing in practice for months now, but soon he’ll have to replicate it during a live-game setting. That might not be as tough as it sounds, though. If his effort in practice translates to the regular season, the glory, recognition, and wins will all come with it.