After starting season on sidelines, Kentucky basketball recruit becomes ‘game-changer’
To encapsulate what Kentucky basketball signee Isaiah Jackson has meant to his new high school team in Michigan, the future Wildcat’s head coach needed only to look back a few days.
With just eight seconds left on the clock Sunday and the score tied against one of the top five teams in the state, Waterford Mott Coach David McGlown drew up a play for Jackson — a 6-foot-9 power forward — to catch the ball in the post and make a move to win it.
Jackson got the ball, the opposing team immediately double-teamed him, and — instead of forcing a bad shot — the high school senior instinctively kicked it back out to a teammate, who nailed an open three-pointer for a marquee victory.
“It was just another example of his selflessness,” McGlown told the Herald-Leader this week. “He’s not out there for stats. He’s just out there to win.”
That’s all he has done since taking the court for Waterford Mott this season.
Jackson’s new beginning at his new school didn’t get off to the best start. After an impressive preseason, Jackson missed the first two games of his senior campaign with an ankle injury. Waterford Mott lost both of those contests. He returned to the court a couple of weeks ago, and his squad is a perfect 5-0 with him in the lineup.
“Our team completely changed when he got back,” McGlown said. “I’d use the analogy of when you go to the park with your big brother and you feel tougher. It seemed like our guys just got so much more confidence when he came, and we’re starting to look like the team that I remember from the summer. We were playing great this summer, and those first two games (this winter) we just looked flat. We didn’t look like the same team.
“He’s just a game-changer. He does so many things well, and his IQ is just so good. And he’s a leader, too. He helps out with guys on the court. He’s talking to them, letting them know where to be. It’s just a great thing to have.”
That selflessness, as McGlown describes it, is something that should help Jackson as an individual and Kentucky as a team next season.
The Wildcats will, as always, boast a star-studded roster. Three of Jackson’s fellow 2020 signees — Terrence Clarke, Brandon Boston and Devin Askew, all guards — are ahead of him in the recruiting rankings. UK is likely to return some other key players from this season’s team.
Jackson, the No. 27 overall recruit in the class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, could be putting up huge numbers in his final season of high school. He’s capable of that — dropping 32 points on his 18th birthday last week, for example — but he seems more intent on playing the role of a team-first player who helps in all areas.
“He’s so worried about everybody else that, at times, I have to tell him: ‘Man, you go do your thing, too, now.’ He’s so selfless,” McGlown said.
Jackson’s fit at Kentucky
Without prompting, Jackson’s coach compared his star player’s attitude to the top talents on John Calipari’s 2012 national title team. Though Jackson is far different from Anthony Davis or Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who took the fourth- and fifth-most shots on that team before going 1-2 in the NBA Draft, as Calipari still points out, the approach is the same.
“He’ll be great down at Kentucky,” McGlown said. “It will go back to that team with Anthony Davis and those guys. I think Anthony Davis only shot the ball eight or nine times a game. He’s that type of player. He’s not worried about his stats. All he wants to do is win. So all those other guys — if they want to shoot — he’ll let them shoot, and he’ll just go do his job and help out.”
His job, it seems, will be to do the things he does best: rebound, rim-run and block shots.
247Sports national analyst Evan Daniels recently described Jackson as a “pogo stick” of an athlete. Rivals.com national analyst Corey Evans called him “an elite shot-blocker.”
He’ll bring those traits to the Wildcats next season, and they should help him get on the court early with the it-all-starts-with-defense approach Calipari uses with his young teams.
That doesn’t mean Jackson isn’t working on his offensive game.
His progress in that area was somewhat stunted while playing last season for Ohio-based Spire Academy, a prep team that featured ball-dominant guards LaMelo Ball, a possible No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft, and Rocket Watts, a highly touted recruit who’s now in his freshman year at Michigan State.
On the Nike circuit this past summer, Jackson averaged 10.9 points on 8.1 shots per game, and he made just one of the 14 three-pointers he attempted.
Since he arrived at Waterford Mott, he has been honing his offensive skills, especially as a shooter. Jackson, who has a personal trainer that regularly works with him on his game, is now shooting (and making) three-pointers on the regular. He’s also sharpening up his mid-range and post skills. He’s becoming more of a complete player.
“That’s part of his game,” McGlown said. “His first few years of high school, he never really got to show that much. But he can really shoot the ball. He can actually step out and shoot the ball, and he’s only getting better at it. So, ‘SEC, watch out!’ if he keeps getting better at it.”
