John Wall believes this Kentucky team is special. "Just lock in on defense."

Now that his NBA playing days are behind him, John Wall has spent a lot of his time in retirement watching his alma mater, your University of Kentucky Wildcats. Wall has been courtside for several games this season, including the win over North Carolina in Atlanta back in December. Before SEC play began in January, Wall had seen so much of Kentucky that he offered advice to his old coach, telling John Calipari to let the boys play loose and free against the Gators in their first true road environment. Kentucky won that game.

Nowadays, Wall is busy with the launch of his new podcast, Point Game, yet he still follows the Wildcats and didn’t mind spending Thursday morning talking about them. Wall was a guest on Thursday’s KSR show to tell old stories from his one-and-done year in Lexington, but he shared his thoughts on the current Wildcats, too. Turns out, he and Rob Dillingham go back several years.

“I met Rob when he was in seventh or eighth grade,” Wall told Matt Jones and KSR’s listening audience, noting that he and Dillingham are both from North Carolina. “I was like, damn, who is this kid? He came in as a middle school kid, playing against high school kids and not backing down and not scared.”

Wall kept up with Dillingham throughout his high school career and spotted similarities in their games as Dillingham got older. When it came time to pick a college, Dillingham’s critics and the recruiting services worried he dribbled too much. “I’m like, Cal is the perfect guy for him. The same way I used to dribble a lot and do extra moves, Cal would say, ‘Listen, if you can’t score in one or two moves, we don’t need you here. You’re doing too much dribbling.'”

Dillingham moved to Lexington with too much dribbling, but like Wall, he tightened up his game under Calipari’s direction while still playing “aggressive” and “fearless,” as Wall put it to KSR.

“But it’s not just him. DJ Wagner, he’s been playing well, playing through an injury that a lot of people don’t know about, finding his role because he’s always been a scorer his whole life, and now they’ve got him playing point guard, so he’s in a different role and environment. Reed Sheppard has been excellent and amazing. I didn’t know he was that good.”

Wall rattled on down the list, adding that Antonio Reeves is an SEC Player of the Year contender who really could’ve helped out Wall’s 2009-10 team. “Man, if I had him or if Jodie (Meeks) came back.”

He concluded with his overall thoughts on the team, saying, “I think this team is special. I think, this is probably the best shooting team that Cal has had completely. I think they have enough depth with big men and I think they have enough depth with guards. My ultimate goal for them is, whatever it is before March starts, just lock in on defense. That’s the only thing where they have ups and downs… If they lock in on that, even if they have nights when they’re not making shots, they’re too good offensively and have too much firepower to find a way to get themselves going.”

Listen to John Wall’s interview on KSR