Is an unlikely SEC team about to land the nation’s No. 1-ranked basketball recruit?
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A program from the Southeastern Conference is trending in the recruitment of one of the nation’s most promising basketball prospects.
It’s not Kentucky or Alabama or Arkansas or Auburn. Not Tennessee or Louisiana State. The SEC teams that have fared the best lately in national recruiting aren’t in the mix for this one.
Instead, South Carolina is emerging as a possible favorite for GG Jackson, who recently ascended to the No. 1 ranking on the Rivals.com board for the 2023 class and is likely on the rise on other national recruiting lists.
Jackson wrapped up his junior season Thursday night with a state championship and confirmed after the game that he plans to announce a college decision in the next two to three weeks.
The college finalists are Duke, North Carolina, and … South Carolina.
Jackson is a native of Columbia, S.C., so the Gamecocks represent the hometown program. Even so, it would be quite the feat for South Carolina to knock off nearby blue-bloods Duke and UNC — as well as lucrative professional options — and keep Jackson home.
It might just happen.
On Thursday morning, On3.com national recruiting analyst Jamie Shaw logged a prediction in favor of the Gamecocks for Jackson on that website’s equivalent to the Crystal Ball page. As of Thursday morning, all three picks on Jackson’s 247Sports Crystal Ball page were in favor of North Carolina, but none of those predictions have been made in the past three months.
Rivals.com national analyst Rob Cassidy told the Herald-Leader last week that he viewed UNC as the slight favorite for the 6-foot-9 forward, but he also said South Carolina was right there in the mix — likely ahead of Duke — and he has not made a prediction on the Rivals FutureCast page.
“The kid handles the ball incredibly well for his size,” Cassidy said of Jackson’s recent move to the No. 1 overall spot. “He can create his own shot. He has a nice little pull-up jumper. He’s as long as you’d ever want to be, and he defends. There aren’t a lot of holes in his game. … He’s a freak athlete. The ball-handling is great. He can bring the ball up the floor at his size. If you need him to play minutes at the point, he could probably do that. He has a really interesting skill set.”
Kentucky had some contact with Jackson, but the Wildcats did not extend a scholarship offer, and it sounds like his recruitment is too far along to seriously jump in at this point.
Jackson might also be in college basketball sooner than originally expected. He’s acknowledged the possibility of a reclassification to 2022 — a move that would put him in college for next season — and a final announcement on that is expected soon.
Landing a prospect like Jackson would be a recruiting coup for the South Carolina program, which has been to the NCAA Tournament just once in Coach Frank Martin’s nine previous seasons. That was an unlikely Final Four run five years ago. The Gamecocks’ most recent NCAA Tournament bid before that came in 2004, and the Final Four run accounted for their first NCAA tourney victory since 1973.
Martin was also mentioned among coaches on the “hot seat” throughout this season, though South Carolina has managed to win five of its last six games to improve to 18-11 overall and 9-8 in the SEC going into the regular-season finale at league champ Auburn on Saturday. The Gamecocks would likely need to win the SEC Tournament next week to make the NCAA Tournament.
If Jackson does indeed pick South Carolina, he would be the program’s first five-star commitment since fellow Columbia native PJ Dozier, who was ranked No. 25 overall in the 2015 class and is the only top-25 player to pick the Gamecocks in the past 20 years.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 10:43 AM.
