CJ McCollum Ethic

My sophomore year when I didn’t start varsity, I was coming off the bench, sixth man, and that was when I was like ‘Alright, I’m a little behind,’” said McCollum. “You start to look at the trajectory levels of where you’re at — I’m a realist — averaging 6.0 points a game on varsity, I’m 5-7 and I really need to take my game to the next level if I want to make this dream a reality. So I just kind of focused. I evaluated my lifestyle, my work ethic, reevaluated how I could kind of get better and find my niche. Continued to shoot, shoot, shoot, handle, perfect my craft so once I grew a little bit more and got my chance to start varsity, I just told myself ‘This is it. If you leave everything out here, you give yourself the best chance to get a scholarship.’ Then for me, it was baby steps. Get a Division I scholarship and then get to the league, but I hadn’t got that scholarship yet, so I wasn’t even thinking about the league. I was like ‘Just get this scholarship.’ I got my first offer and I was like ‘Alright, we got one, let’s get some more.’ That’s kind of how it went, it kind of snowballed.”