MUNCIE, Ind. -- Another day, another double-double for Kent State's Delrecco Gillespie, who collects them like nobody else in men's college basketball. Before heading for the team bus there are friends and family waiting to pose for pictures. Smile, snap, hugs all around.
Family is important to him. He even has a cousin, Rob Whaley Jr., as a Kent State teammate and they're having the time of their lives together. The Joi Boys. That's their tribute-to-fun nickname, and don't bother to use spellcheck. It is indeed J-o-i. That's for Joi Whaley, Delrecco's mother.
He lost her when he was 13.
She died in an Atlanta traffic accident. Within the following year, a sister and grandfather also passed away. Barely a teenager, Delrecco was forced into a crash course in the meaning of loss. So yeah, having loved ones waiting outside the locker room are moments to cherish, and always will be.
"You never know when it's their time," he is saying after the picture-taking is over. "So you have to cherish them while they're here and love them."
There was also the knee injury that all but wiped out his sophomore season. Dark days, worse nights, painful knee and even more painful memories, on and off the court. And he was still just a kid. But he would always come back to the game. There, the world was not so cruel.
"The gym would always keep me away from my problems," he says. "Basketball is just my peace.
"Getting basketball taken away from me my sophomore year and having to rehab seven months . . . I just try to go out there and play every play like it's my last, knowing that it can be taken from you."
So that's why he plays the way he does, treating every potential rebound as if it were a winning Powerball ticket in danger of blowing away. Gillespie is 6-8 so he is hardly a Zach Edey, but he began this season with nine consecutive double-doubles. He now has 20. Nobody else in Division I has more than 17. His 11.9 rebound average also leads the nation, and it goes with 19.1 scoring. His cousin is the third leading scorer. The Golden Flashes are 19-7 and the Joi Boys are big reasons why.
Coach Rob Senderoff is standing outside the locker room describing Gillespie.
"He's obviously got great hands. He has really good timing and he has long arms. But really what separates him is his motor. He makes multiple efforts; his second jump is faster than most people's second jumps so when he misses he's able to go get his own rebounds. He's just got an elite, elite, elite motor."
Might hard times have something to do with that?
"I think that's probably where his fire comes from. He's a great kid. He's overcome a lot in his personal life and also basketball-wise."
The persistence shows in the way Gillespie's career numbers have been on a steady up escalator. As a freshman reserve he averaged 2.4 points and 1.7 rebounds. By last season, his junior year after missing most of 2023-24 with his knee, he was at 8.1 and 8.1. Now look what's be up to -- 22 points and 16 rebounds in the season opener with Troy and he hasn't slowed down much since.
"He continues to grow both as a person and as a player and I think the player part is really just starting to scratch the surface. I think his best playing days are still ahead of him because he has a great thirst for improvement," Senderoff says. "He doesn't think he knows everything. He wants to improve as a leader; he wants to improve as a player; he wants to improve as a teammate. So when you put all those things together . . ."
Lots of double-doubles happen.
Kent State and Gillespie are not getting the spotlight in the Mid-American Conference this season. That goes to Miami's wondrous unbeaten run. Note that the RedHawks' spotless record was very nearly muddied by the Golden Flashes, 107-101 in overtime. Gillespie went for 17 points and eight rebounds, one of only six games this season without a double-double.
This is Senderoff's 15th season at Kent State, so he's been around a few blocks. He believes there are several messages being sent by Gillespie, the MAC and Miami that college basketball at large should hear.
Take Gillespie spending four years at Kent State. Now something of an oddity in the transfer portal age. Senderoff mentions how Miami is also veteran-heavy, and many other top MAC players have been at their schools for a while. "That to me is a story that doesn't get told enough," Senderoff says. "A lot of people seem to be looking at what's next as opposed to what's in front of you. A lot of times if you just work at it and allow yourself to go through ups and downs, that's how you develop. And you're seeing those numbers this year.
"He has my trust because I know everything about him as a person and as a player. I've seen his journey. So I know what he wants to do. He wants to win."
That relationship has been allowed the space and years to go both ways. "I just trusted Coach with my development and stayed the course and just was patient," Gillespie says. "I waited for my time to come."
Senderoff believes college basketball would be better if there were more Delrecco Gillespies. Also more Miamis, even if he can't wait to get another shot at the RedHawks, maybe in the conference tournament. A once-empty arena and slumbering program are now pulsating in Oxford, and the accompanying national attention will do the school no harm.
"Hopefully what it does is show administrators and decision-makers just how much athletics and basketball in particular can do for a university," Senderoff says. "I've got a master's degree from Miami. The excitement that you see surrounding their games and the attention they're receiving, those things do a lot for a university. There's so many financial constraints and budgetary constraints that a lot of schools in our league feel, but if you look at the investment in their program, how much that's helped their university, maybe people shood look at them and think, if we do this can we achieve what they're achieving? That's what athletics has the ability to do unlike anything else on campus. The science department can't do what their basketball team is doing, it just can't.
"Not that I'm rooting for them because I'm not, I'm rooting for us. But for our conference it's certainly great. It opens eyes for a lot of people."
Basketball can even help a heartbroken kid face the gut punches of life.
Consider the young man standing tall to get his picture with his loved ones. The guy with all the double-doubles. One of the Joi Boys.