Jackson Sivills was a Kentucky high school basketball star. Now, he’s a March Madness hero
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Tracking NCAA games in Rupp Arena
Click below to view more coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com about the men’s NCAA Tournament games March 20 and 22 in Rupp Arena.
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When Thursday’s night session of men’s NCAA Tournament play at Rupp Arena begins around 6:50 p.m., a former Kentucky high school basketball star will be on the floor.
He’ll be a recognizable face on one of the heaviest underdogs in this year’s March Madness, and part of a team that’s punching well above its weight in terms of the storylines normally offered by a 15 seed.
And — if nothing else — Jackson Sivills’ college basketball career will end with the high note that his high school career should have.
Sivills is a 6-foot-6, fifth-year guard for Wofford, the 15 seed that owns a 19-15 overall record entering its matchup against 2 seed Tennessee as part of the Midwest Regional in one of Thursday’s first-round games in Lexington.
Sivills was born in Paducah and made his name on the hardwood as a standout at McCracken County.
He’s the all-time leading scorer and rebounder for the Mustangs: Sivills scored 1,998 career points and pulled down 871 rebounds during a prep career that ran from 2016-2020. While at McCracken County, Sivills played alongside his older brother Will, who played collegiately at Transylvania.
The younger Sivills first played collegiately at Murray State. His father, Scott, who coaches the McCracken County girls basketball team, also played for the Racers from 1990-94.
Under former Murray State head coach Matt McMahon — now the head coach at LSU — Sivills played in 14 of Murray State’s 26 games as a freshman during the pandemic-affected 2020-21 season. During the 2021-22 campaign — when Murray State won the Ohio Valley Conference regular season and tournament championships, as well as a first-round game in the NCAA Tournament — Sivills came off the bench for 15 appearances.
After McMahon departed Murray for LSU, Sivills hit the portal and transferred to Wofford, one of the original finalists in his college recruitment.
It’s proved to be a fruitful pairing.
Over the last three seasons with the Terriers, Sivills has averaged 7.7 points and 3.7 rebounds per contest, while shooting 35.8% from deep. Sivills has started 73 games for Wofford during this stretch.
His crowning college basketball moment, to date, came March 10, when he poured in a career-best 20 points to lead Wofford past Furman in the Southern Conference Tournament championship game. Sivills knocked down four 3-pointers in that game to help send the Terriers — who are coached by former Kentucky walk-on Dwight Perry — to the Big Dance for the first time since 2019.
This season, Sivills is fifth on Wofford in scoring at 9.3 points per game, and he averaged more than 15 points per game for Wofford druing the Terriers’ SoCon Tournament title run.
Perry was one of the assistant coaches who initially recruited Sivills out of high school to Wofford, which is located in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
“There’s a lot of qualities about Wofford that align with me. I think tradition, obviously they had built up a very, very good program before I got there. The school is amazing. But overall, man, just the community and — we have some Wofford people in attendance here right now — just how they treat you,” Sivills said Wednesday afternoon at Rupp Arena.
“Everyone there is connected with each other toward a same goal. You feel like when you’re on campus that everybody is there for a reason, you know. As cliché as that may sound.”
How does Perry remember the times he recruited Sivills?
“The second time recruiting him, if only it was as easy the first time,” Perry began with a laugh.
Perry acknowledged that he knew Wofford was up against it when recruiting Sivills out of McCracken County, largely because of his family ties and the geographical proximity to Murray State.
Perry described Sivills as a high-school prospect who displayed shooting ability and skill, but also as a player who was tough and committed to winning. Perry even remembered Sivills’ initial recruiting trip to Wofford as “one of the better official visits I think I’ve been a part of.”
That eventually meshed well with the Wofford program, even if took a bit longer than planned to get Sivills to Spartanburg.
“The second time around was really simple, but it was because we recruited him. So, he had visited already, we had built a relationship with him already,” Perry said. “He knew the style of play. He knew what we were about. For lack of a better term, he knew the strengths and weaknesses.”
Jackson Sivills returns to Rupp with Wofford after McCracken County career
On the surface, Wofford’s placement in Lexington for this year’s NCAA Tournament was fortunate for Sivills. It provides an easy opportunity for his mother, Catherine, father, Scott, and older brother, Will, to attend the game.
“My family is going to be able to come up. Obviously, some other people from Paducah, my high school coaches, which is very special to me,” Sivills said.
But scratch a little deeper and you’ll find a true full-circle moment in Sivills’ basketball timeline.
As a sophomore at McCracken County in 2018, Sivills was part of the first Mustangs team since 2014 to reach the Sweet 16 boys state basketball tournament at Rupp Arena as winners of the 1st Region Tournament. Sivills averaged 13.1 points and 7.9 rebounds per game for that McCracken team, which went out in the first round of the Sweet 16 to Oldham County.
As a high school senior, Sivills and his McCracken County teammates did all the hard work required of them to make it back to Rupp. The Mustangs put together a spectacular 30-5 season and once again won the 1st Region Tournament. Sivills, an all-state selection as a senior who averaged 21.4 points per game, scored 21 of McCracken County’s 43 points in a one-point win over Marshall County to claim the 1st Region title.
But that Sweet 16 was never played due to the COVID-19 pandemic. McCracken County’s scheduled opening-round game against Clark County never occurred. Sivills didn’t get to end his prep basketball career with a final bow at Rupp Arena.
The COVID cancellation of the 2020 Sweet 16 also took away the chance for Sivills to become a 2,000-point scorer in Kentucky high school basketball.
So in some respects, the basketball gods owed this to Sivills. Not only the breakout week he enjoyed for the Terriers at the SoCon Tournament, but also the luck of the draw that sees him return to Rupp Arena as a fifth-year college player.
“I think it’s just a crazy ... Full-circle moment,” Sivills said. “It took a little while to get over not being able to finish my season here and my senior year of high school, but it’s crazy how life can work in mysterious ways and now I’m back.”
Sivills, Wofford hope to pull NCAA upset over Tennessee
While Sivills had a Sweet 16 memory taken from him back in 2020, there is optimism — at least among the Wofford camp — that another, truly spectacular Sweet 16 moment could be coming for the Terriers this week.
Wofford is 1-5 all-time in NCAA Tournament contests, with the lone win coming in 2019 when the Terriers were a 7 seed in March Madness. The odds of finding repeat success are a lot longer in 2025.
Tennessee poses plenty of problems that Perry’s team will have to solve.
Leading the list is how Wofford’s offense — a respectable 67th in KenPom’s offensive efficiency and 53rd in 2-point field goal percentage — plans to operate against the Volunteers, who boast the nation’s third-best defense, also per KenPom.
Specifically for Sivills, the task will be finding enough open space to let his 3-point shot fly. Sivills is a career 35.9% 3-point shooter and more than 60% of his points scored this season have come on shots from behind the arc. Tennessee offers the nation’s best 3-point shooting defense, with opponents making only 27.8% of their shots from deep.
“Step one is you pray,” Perry deadpanned to begin his explanation of how Wofford plans to solve Tennessee’s defense.
“... For us, the biggest thing is we’re going to have to be aggressive and still be disciplined and simple. ... If you just pass the ball around and you’re not trying to be aggressive. Yeah, you’re probably not going to turn the ball over, but you’re not going to generate high-quality shots. So there has to be a balance there. I think for us the biggest thing is we have to get great looks. A lot of times that’s probably going to be from 3, but we have to do a good job of puncturing the heart of their defense and taking good looks wherever they come, whether its from 2 or 3.”
Whatever happens Thursday night, Sivills will get his long-awaited Rupp Arena moment.
And a basketball career made in the commonwealth will get at least one more moment of celebration on the biggest stage the state has to offer for hoops.
“It’s a dream come true and a blessing for sure,” Sivills said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 1:16 PM.
