LA JOLLA, Calif. – He's there when you need him. Whether it's for a late-game moment of refocusing or for help sorting through a grad school application, he's the go-to option. Jake Killingsworth isn't the Tritons' top scoring option. He didn't bring home any Big West Conference hardware. But what he does bring to the UC San Diego men's basketball team is far more valuable.
 
Jake is the 'glue guy' incarnate. The selfless veteran who's leading not only by example, but with his words. Jake is just as willing to box out a physical forward as he is to look over your personal statement.
 
And even though it may seem like he's got it all figured out now, he would be the first to tell you that it's taken him a long time to get to this point and that his learning process is far from over, even now that he's played his last game of collegiate basketball.
 
Jake has been with basketball for his entire life, growing up with the game thanks to his mom, Kelly, who played basketball in college at the University of Georgia. "I'll give her 95% of everything I know," says Killingsworth with a smile. "I attribute all of my game knowledge and all of my athleticism, or lack of athleticism, to her as well."
 
But even with this hands-on at-home coach, Jake was not heavily recruited out of high school by any Division I programs. He was, however, nearly a Triton.
 
"I was actually recruited by coach [Eric] Olen and coach [Clint] Allard out of high school. I took an official tour here, did the tours, played on campus, did everything with the team here, before deciding to go to Columbia."
 
That relationship is what helped Jake find his way back to UC San Diego after four years of undergraduate learning and basketball in the Ivy League at Columbia.
 
"Like a lot of times you build a little bit of a relationship with the recruits and then you follow their careers," says men's basketball head coach Eric Olen. "We had seen that he had had an injury and knew he was graduating with eligibility, so as soon as our season ended, he was someone we connected with and renewed that relationship with."
 
In those intermediate years, Jake became by no means a finished product. Instead, his time at Columbia tested him not just in the classroom, but also tested his perseverance and dedication to bettering himself and his craft.
 
His first test began before he even set foot on campus. The entire coaching staff that had recruited him to Columbia had left prior to his freshman season, meaning that everyone came in with a clean slate.
 
"I went into Columbia with the expectation that I would ride the bench the first two years really just earning my way through and hopefully, by the time I was older, I would have some playing opportunities."
 
Instead, Jake played significant minutes as a freshman, making 14 starts across 24 games. In the second game of his career, he put in 17 points thanks to three three-pointers, one of three double-digit offensive efforts he would produce that year.
 
But things were not going quite as well as they may have seemed on the outside. Throughout his freshman year, Jake dealt with health problems, colds that would transform into more serious illnesses that kept him off road trips and forced him to miss games and weeks of practice at a time.
 
"Trying to balance that with my freshman year as well, trying to get my feet set academically and basketball wise, was challenging."
 
The summer following that freshman season, Jake worked with doctors in New York to get healthy, and after months of tests and scans was confident that he would be ready to perform come basketball season in early November.
 
For its 2017-18 season opener, Columbia was scheduled to take on Villanova, the defending National Champions. But the night before the game, Jake received an unexpected phone call. Less than 24 hours before tip-off, his doctor had called to let him know that he would need season-ending surgery in November or December.
 
"I went through all of the offseason, all of that work, just to get it taken away less than 24 hours before," recalls Killingsworth. "That happens, that's life, and it was an opportunity to grow. But it was tough at the time."
 
The surgery took him off the court for all but two games of his sophomore season, and after a spring and summer of recovery, Jake returned to the court and began his hard work once again. This culminated in a senior season where he started all 30 games, setting career-highs in points and rebounds per game.
 
With all of that baggage, that varied life experience, Jake was able to find a new home at UC San Diego before the 2020-21 season, becoming a much-needed veteran leader on a team losing Chris Hansen, Christian Oshita, Tyrell Roberts, and eventually Mikey Howell as well.
 
"He brings a lot of toughness, all of the intangibles that you look for in all of your players, but in particular your leaders," says coach Olen.
 
"Last year, he was a lead by example guy because we still had Mikey [Howell] and some other guys who had been in the program for a little bit. This year, he did a great job of really leading by example but also being more vocal and making it his team in a way. He's certainly one of the voices the guys respond to, and you can see that they look to him in big moments."
 
Jake's knack for leadership certainly has helped the Tritons on the court over the past two seasons, as has his willingness to hit the glass hard, racking up 4.0 rebounds per game despite being listed as a 6'5 guard this season.
 
His attention to rebounding is a conscious choice dating back to his time as a freshman at Columbia trying to separate himself from other guards. Now, it's an aspect of his game that reflects his general attitude surrounding his leadership role on the floor, especially playing for an admittedly smaller team at UC San Diego.  
 
"Rebounding is hard. You have to be very willing to go rebound, you have to be very willing to go box out," says Killingsworth. "At UC San Diego, we're a smaller team, it's something everyone has to focus on."  
 
But off the court is where his teammates may remember him more, not just as a teacher but as a student as well, displaying that same willingness to do the selfless work involved in rebounding in other aspects of being a teammate.
 
Based on how his face lit up during the interview though, his favorite mentorship relationship has been with Jace Roquemore.
 

 
"This year in particular, it seems that just a lot of my time on the court has been spent with Jace [Roquemore]. He was kind of playing sporadically last season, [and now] he's essentially leading the team in minutes, so that development with our relationship on and off the court has been something this year to where we have really good chemistry."
 
Jake has also grown closer with two of the other role players from last season who have stepped into major roles this year, Bryce Pope and Toni Rocak, but in a way that some might see as unique for a veteran player.  
 
"From them, it's been learning how to just say 'I'm gonna go get a bucket right now,'" says Killingsworth. "I'm not pulling out the moves that Toni is doing in the post and I'm not knocking down some of those deep contested threes, what we call Bryce Bombs, but [I've picked up] that confidence in yourself that they bring."
 
And don't forget the only Triton who can beat Jake to the glass.
 
"You can't watch our team, watch our wins without Francis [Nwaokorie]," says Killingsworth. "I'm constantly learning from him, trying to mimic some of his rebounding habits, and just be there to help him however I can do that as well."
 
He isn't just an on-court mentor though. Off the court, Jake is the go-to resource for teammates looking for post-grad opportunities, as the first graduate player on the team at UC San Diego. Killingsworth recently completed his MBSA from the Rady School of Business.
 

 
"I've talked with teammates about business school applications and post-grad applications and essays," says Killingsworth with a smile. "On the school end, I definitely get some ideas run by me, and I'll either shoot those down or gas them up."
 
With the wisdom of years of experience, and the confidence he has borrowed from teammate Bryce Pope, Jake's mindset today is that of someone much more experienced than the twenty-something shooting guard he is. And it is something that really has been the product of "constant learning" that is still ongoing within him today, part and parcel with his experience in graduate school.
 
"It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, to feel like what you're doing is monotonous. When you get caught up in that cycle, it takes the joy out of it," says Killingsworth. "I can miss all my shots today, all my shots tomorrow, but it doesn't matter, it's just a little microcosm of a bigger season. You have to remember that life is going to go on and you're going to have to be right back here tomorrow doing the same thing, so you may as well enjoy it."
 
Now, Jake is set to bring that mindset to Costa Mesa, where he will begin working with Deloitte as a financial consultant, a field he found a way into just by "picking the brains" of contacts he'd made, the same way he found ways to improve on the basketball court.
 
But maybe his two years in the beach city of San Diego have begun to have an impact. The self-proclaimed convert from an east coast to SoCal guy is in no rush to begin working, not because he isn't prepared to begin working. He just knew how to recognize sound advice when he heard it.
 
"I have it set up to where I have a couple of months off doing absolutely nothing to relax, get my feet back under me, go see friends that I haven't been able to see due to my basketball commitments," says Killingsworth. "The thing people love to say is 'You can work for the rest of your life, so take as much time off as you can now.' And I guess three months off isn't as much time as I could take, but I'm looking forward to it."

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.