Germantown Friends’ Jordan Dill just starred for the Puerto Rican national basketball team. Here’s what’s next.

Jordan Dill had never left the United States until June. Now, he might be one of the most-traveled teenagers in the world.

Dill, who will be a junior at Germantown Friends School, spent the last month in Istanbul, while playing for Puerto Rico at the FIBA under-17 Basketball World Cup. The 6-foot-1 guard has spent his life in Philly, but his grandmother was born in San Juan, which granted him eligibility to play for Puerto Rico under FIBA’s grandparent rule.

In a 16-team field full of basketball powerhouses — including the United States, which won its seventh straight title on July 7 — Puerto Rico surprised many with a sixth-place finish.

“We were the smallest country that was in there, but we finished top six,” Dill said. “... Nobody thought we were going top 10; they thought we were going last because of how small we were.”

Dill, 17, averaged 10.2 points and was the team’s second-best scorer despite logging the sixth-most minutes. He scored eight points in a loss to Spain to open the tournament but broke out during the last two group stage games, pouring in 21 against Lithuania and 15 vs. the Philippines.

Puerto Rico faced an uphill battle against France in the round of 16 but held the lead early in the fourth quarter. Entering with 8 minutes, 38 seconds remaining and his team up three, Dill immediately scored four straight points on a pair of midrange buckets to extend the advantage.

He added three more clutch points on a shot from beyond the arc with under two minutes to play, helping Puerto Rico seal an upset.

Dill suffered a hand injury in the team’s quarterfinal loss to Italy and was forced to miss the final two placement games, but he already had made his mark.

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“I think he showed everybody exactly what he can do as a scorer, as a playmaker, [and] as someone who can just go get you a bucket whenever,” said Jamil Pines, who is entering his second year as head coach at Germantown Friends.

Dill averaged 26 points for Germantown Friends last season, up from 21.5 as a freshman, and was first-team All-Friends League his first two seasons. Even as an eighth-grader, he played on varsity, and posted seven 20-point performances while becoming the first middle-schooler in the league to earn honorable mention.

Though his excellence on the court in Istanbul suggested that he was thriving during his first visit overseas, it took Dill a while to settle in.

“[The trip] definitely had its ups and downs,” Dill said. “I’m still a kid, and I hadn’t seen my family since June 3. It was rough for me at the beginning.”

Dill’s mother, Judie, had similar feelings. She and Jordan’s father, Juwan, attend all of their son’s games, so watching from an ocean and then a continent away felt like uncharted territory.

“When I found out all the countries he was going to be in, I was a little nervous,” Judie Dill said. “The first time that he travels alone, for him to be leaving the country was kind of a big thing for me.”

Judie swayed back and forth until May about whether to let Dill take the trip, but she’s glad she did. Also a native of Puerto Rico, Dill’s mother recognized what it would mean for him to play for the national team — he had dreamed of appearing on the world stage since attending the Junior Olympics in elementary school in 2017.

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“We don’t know when the ball is going to stop bouncing,” she recalled saying to Jordan. “Basketball is not forever. But what you’re doing right now, there are people who never get to do that in their lifetime.”

If the rarity of the opportunity didn’t set in for Dill then, it certainly did when he suited up for the first time. Dill’s debut for Puerto Rico came in an exhibition game against Spain early in the trip, and the moment was unlike any he had experienced.

“Even though it was a scrimmage, the game was so nerve-wracking because everybody from around the world [was] seeing the game,” Dill said. “… We had 500,000 people look at the game.”

Dill adjusted after his initial encounter with the bright lights, scored 30 points in the team’s next exhibition match, against Canada, and carried that momentum into the U17 tournament.

While his basketball accomplishments in the last few weeks will be hard to top, Dill has the potential to do so this season at Germantown Friends.

The junior has 1,658 points through three seasons, fewer than 400 shy of the school scoring record. Jonathan Haynes, who graduated in 1990 and went on to play at Villanova, scored 2,022 points for the Tigers.

Pines knows his star guard would like to surpass Haynes, and Dill wasn’t shy to confirm that.

“It’s on my mind, of course,” Dill said.

Between the addition of the shot clock, the rise of the three-pointer, and the allowance for players like Dill to start their varsity careers early, high school scoring records have become easier to chase down in the modern era. It’s rare for one from the 20th century to still stand, and Haynes seems to not mind that his 34-year run at the top might soon end.

“I’m rooting for [Dill],” Haynes said. “I want him to go for the record. … I’m happy for him, I’m happy for his family. I’m excited to see.”

Haynes acknowledged that he hasn’t kept up much with high school sports recently — he didn’t even know who Dill was until recently. The news that he’ll likely soon be surpassed has drawn him back.

Dill likely will claim the record midway through next season but has plans on taking a different one of Haynes’ records before that. The former Wildcat scored 50 points in a game at Germantown Friends, the most in school history. Dill fell one short when he tallied 49 against Bodine High School last December and hasn’t forgotten that he missed three free throws that night.

“You won’t believe how mad I was,” Dill said. “I was one point away. … There’s definitely [a 50-point game] coming, probably the first game [of the season].”

But that isn’t at the top of his to-do list. Germantown Friends is 36-44 overall and 7-20 in the Friends League since he joined the team and hasn’t made the playoffs since 2018. Dill appreciates the recognition for individual accolades, but he hopes that attention can spread to the rest of the program as it looks to turn things around.

“The main thing is winning now,” Dill said. “I want to put GFS on the map — not just for academics.”