LOS ANGELES — The light switch in IMG Academy’s gym is layered with his family’s fingerprints. No janitor had to worry about turning them on. No coach had to unlock the ball closet. Because Eric Dailey Jr. and his dad had beaten them all there. Every morning.

They’d wake up before 6 a.m. Take Mom’s keys to the Bradenton, Florida, facility. Open the doors, turn on the lights and uncork an echoing howl.

“Ain’t nobody in the gym, E!”

“Ain’t nobody in the gym, Dad!”

And then they’d get to work.

These were Dailey’s days. Morning training sessions with his dad. School. Shooting on the side while his mom coached practice; traveling with her to the games she coached. His own practice. Another training session at night. Schoolwork largely came on Saturdays. Not the Saturday after it was due, but a week or two before, to portion out future time for training. He had it down to a science, Eric Dailey Sr. said.

On the last day of school, Dailey Sr. would give his son a liter of Sprite to signify his one cheat day before a summer when each morning started with a workout. If his son wanted to sleep in, Dailey Sr. said, it’d be outside in the beating sun.

In the Dailey family, holidays look a little different. On Christmas, laps in the indoor pool precede opening presents. Calories are burned before grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner. Winter breaks meant three weeks in IMG’s gym to themselves.

“Eric knows nothing else, but to see people work hard,” Shell Dailey said of her son, “because that was the day in and day out thing to do. He saw training. He saw what it looked like going to the gym every day. It was the norm for him.”

Shell Dailey had coached in the WNBA. Dailey Sr. had played overseas for 10 years. They each sacrificed when their son came into the picture, relocating to Florida as Shell Dailey sprouted IMG’s girls basketball program and Dailey Sr. started a training academy. Their occupations changed, but their work ethic didn’t. They passed it along to their son, whether he accepted it or not. Not that the latter was an option. So training became Dailey’s life.

He didn’t play AAU because of the heavy emphasis on games instead of practicing and developing. Instead, he trained like his father was taught in Europe, working on each skill — passing, playmaking, shooting, etc. — so as to not be boxed into a singular position. Then he became a European, playing in Spain or Italy with his dad’s former teams’ youth clubs during summers.

Those experiences gave him a new perspective on life, shaping him into a versatile player, and taught him the importance of discipline. All of which he brought to the UCLA men’s basketball team, where in his sophomore season, he has the best on/off split — the difference when he is on or off the court — of any player in the Big Ten. He’s averaging 12.4 points per game and shooting 54% from the field.

‘I will be back’

Dailey had never felt the effects of rejection until the summer before 10th grade.

He had just started playing at IMG Academy because of his mom. He wasn’t ranked because he didn’t play AAU. But Don Showalter, a director of development at USA Basketball’s Youth Division, scouted Dailey and was impressed.

Dailey got an invite to USA Basketball’s U16 training camp in Miami in 2019. Thirty-some players competed for 12 roster spots. Dailey showed out, but individual talent wasn’t the first priority. USA Basketball uses those training camps to create an all-around roster to take on foreign opponents. The U16 players face teams from the Americas in order to qualify USA for the FIBA U17 World Cup. Dailey was really good, Showalter said, he just didn’t fit in with what was needed at that time.

“The guys that are really good players, they take that to heart and use that as motivation,” Showalter said. “And that’s exactly what Eric did.”

He returned from the camp with a coveted USA backpack filled with merch and gear, none of which he cared for much. He told his parents how it went down. He’d given it his all. He got cut. He thanked the coaches in the exit interview. And, he told them, I will be back.

That’s when his parents knew that this wasn’t just their dream anymore.

“I was like, ‘Oh, he got cut. I want to see what that does to him,’” Dailey Sr. said.

Dailey had just gotten his driver’s license. So, that summer, he got a job driving around IMG, filling up Gatorade jugs before any athletes arrived. Anything to get him to the facility at the crack of dawn, or before it. He’d wake up at 5 a.m., leaving his Dad behind. He’d finish filling the coolers by 6:30, then go to the gym for a workout. At 8 a.m., he’d refill the coolers, then return for shooting drills. He’d wait around for the summer camp to finish to scrimmage with the counselors. He’d stay at night for another training session.

From that point on, he never missed the cut on another USA team.

He won gold at the U18 3x3 World Cup in Debrecen, Hungary. He played in the U18 3x3 World Cup in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, a team of Dailey, Keyonte George (Utah Jazz), Kyle Filipowski (Utah Jazz) and Gradey Dick (Toronto Raptors) captured a gold medal

He made the 12-person roster for the Men’s 5x5 U18 National Team and U19 team, winning gold at the 2022 FIBA U18 Americas Championship in Tijuana, Mexico. He appeared in the annual Nike Hoops Summit game in Portland, Oregon, in 2023.

‘A pure way of playing basketball’

At Dailey’s first Team USA minicamp back in 2019, he felt like an outsider, Shell Dailey said, because the majority of the kids there had come up through the AAU system. He received questioning glares, tinged with a hint of jealousy. Dailey had experienced things his peers could only dream of, seen cities they’d only heard about in movies.

He might have learned his crossover dribble in Seoul, honed his right-hand finishing skills in Barcelona. His father’s company, Dailey Training International, held camps in Asia and Europe and he regularly worked with overseas professionals. From a young age, Dailey accompanied his dad on trips.

“It’s nothing for him to spend Christmas in Hong Kong,” Dailey Sr. said.

Dailey Sr. understood the value of overseas hoops. Kids focus on developing all skills, regardless of their height or build. The volume of practices heavily trumps games.

“It taught me a pure way of playing basketball,” Dailey said. “I feel like overseas, they get the game, they understand the game. They’re not just worried about highlights and mixtapes. ... I saw how hard they went. It inspired me to go hard and keep working on my game.”

Each summer after eighth grade, Dailey played in Europe. FC Barcelona and Real Madrid attempted to sign him, but the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, so he and his family decided to stay at IMG. After 11th grade, he had Zoom calls with eight teams in the NBL, the professional basketball league in Australia and New Zealand. He worked out for the Adelaide 36ers, but the contract fell through. He eventually signed with Stella Azzurra Rome, an Italian-based team, ahead of the U18 Adidas Next Generations Tournament in Belgrade, Serbia.

In retrospect, Dailey’s thankful he didn’t accept a long-term contract because he got to experience both sides of the spectrum. He’d play against and with foreign talent in the offseason and see the best AAU had to offer at IMG. It also meant he retained eligibility, and that he could apply his various experiences to his college career.

‘Stay the same’

He’d learned from rejection, but losing over and over tested him in a different way.

Dailey committed to Oklahoma State because of head coach Mike Boynton. The Cowboys were a young bunch in a stacked Big 12 Conference. He started the first 16 games of the 2023-24 season, but the coaching staff felt they were better with him coming off the bench to spark a struggling second unit. They played him at center in small-ball lineups. The versatile guard skills he gleaned from his European training largely went neglected. The Cowboys went 12-20.

“I never lost this much,” Dailey texted his father.

“Hey, man,” Dailey Sr. replied, “whether you up or down, stay the same.”

Mornings started earlier. Dailey studied his role and tried to maximize it. Throughout that season he learned, he said, what traits scouts look for and focused on improving those.

He was in the gym, of course, finishing a workout when his phone buzzed with a message from UCLA expressing interest. Throughout his transfer process, he’d considered Gonzaga and Kentucky, along with the Bruins. He was drawn to Los Angeles because of the city’s international feel, but outside noises warned him and his circle about Bruins coach Mick Cronin.

“I’m like, ‘Damn, is he a monster or something?’” Dailey Sr. said.

Eight months later, Dailey tells his father that he’d run through a wall for Cronin. He’s the coach, Dailey said, that he needed because he lets him play his game. He’s fiery and he holds him accountable just as his parents did.

Reflecting, Dailey Sr. refers to those who cautioned him as soft.

“They didn’t train like we trained,” he said.

With Oklahoma State being a semester school, Dailey was able to arrive in Westwood in May. He set up his own individual training camp for a month before UCLA’s practices started. He worked on his shooting form, trying to keep his head still when he shot.

His work ethic quickly caught Cronin’s eye. On Christmas Eve, after UCLA’s game against North Carolina in New York, Dailey went straight from the plane to the Mo Ostin Center to train.

After some of Dailey’s best performances this season — an 18-point game against Gonzaga on Dec. 28, a career-high 23 points against Iowa on Jan. 17, and a 21-point showing Thursday against Oregon — Cronin credited his hard work.

“Eric Dailey spends more time in the gym, on his shooting — he’s the most dedicated guy I’ve ever coached on his diet, his rest, his commitment to what he’s trying to accomplish in basketball. And it pays off. It doesn’t surprise me when I see him do this,” Cronin said about Dailey after he shot 8 of 9 from the field in UCLA’s 78-52 win over then-No. 16 Oregon.

And while Dailey might have scored just nine points on 3-of-9 shooting Tuesday night, his floater over two defenders with 7.5 seconds left was the difference in a 63-61 victory over No. 9 Michigan State at Pauley Pavilion for the Bruins’ sixth consecutive victory.

Dailey doesn’t believe in a set routine because no day and no game are the same. If his shot mechanics need tuning, he’ll spend hours on that; if he missed free throws the night before, he’ll spend the next morning at the line.

“Each game is a quiz,” Dailey Sr. said. “We look at the things that we didn’t do well on that quiz and we go back to the gym the next day and work on that.”

After Dailey scored four points in UCLA’s 85-83 win over Wisconsin on Jan. 21, he didn’t panic. The following morning, he was in the gym at 6:30 a.m. He swiped his student athlete’s card to the Mo Ostin Center, walked to the practice court, took out his phone, snapped a photo and sent it to his father with a message:

“Ain’t nobody in the gym, Dad!”