The most intriguing college basketball player in Kentucky is 7-5 — and still growing?
Growing up in Hopkinsville, Jamarion Sharp remembers spending his eighth-grade year looking his classmates in the eye.
It was the following year when Sharp returned from summer vacation to find himself looking down on every head in school.
At that point, Sharp stood 6-foot-6.
What would become Sharp’s multi-year growth “spurt” still had almost another foot to go.
“Every single year, it was the same thing: ‘Oh wow, I just keep getting taller and taller,’” Sharp says.
If you have been paying close attention to the 2021-22 men’s college basketball season in Kentucky, you are aware of Sharp.
Inserted by Rick Stansbury into the Western Kentucky University starting lineup seven games ago, the 7-foot-5 Sharp has established himself as the most intriguing college hooper in the commonwealth.
As a starter, Sharp is averaging 9.8 points, 9 rebounds and 5.9 blocked shots. He has helped Western go 6-1 after it had started the season 1-3.
On Saturday at 2:30 p.m. EST, Sharp will have his biggest stage yet as WKU (7-4) will play host to instrastate foe Louisville (7-3) at E.A. Diddle Arena.
“I’m ready for that game,” Sharp says. “I know the arena will be packed and packed gyms like that, that is when I play my best.”
In his seven games in the starting lineup, Sharp already has a triple-double — 10 points, 12 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in his first WKU start vs. Alabama A&M.
The junior big man has already played a starring role in an intrastate grudge match, hitting Eastern Kentucky with 17 points and 14 boards in an 85-80 Hilltoppers victory over their ancient rivals.
On Saturday night in Atlanta, leading the way for an inspired Western team playing only hours after a tornado had done substantial damage near the WKU campus in Bowling Green, Sharp discombobulated a Southeastern Conference foe.
The Western big man had 16 points, nine boards and six blocked shots as the Hilltoppers plastered Mississippi 71-48 in the “Holiday Hoopsgiving” event at State Farm Arena.
“An intimidating force around that goal,” Mississippi Coach Kermit Davis said afterward of Sharp. “He had six blocks and probably altered seven, eight or nine more (shots) ... with our guards in the paint looking for him. He was a big weapon underneath, for sure.”
For the season, Sharp is averaging 7.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg and leads the nation in blocked shots at 4.91 a game. He is making 68.4 percent of his field-goal attempts — and 37.5 percent of his free throws.
The proverbial “late bloomer” who is not a full semester removed from playing junior-college basketball at John A. Logan College in Illinois, even Sharp is surprised at the impact he is making.
“It’s been better than I expected,” Sharp said Thursday morning.
The growth period that took Sharp from a 6-6 high school freshman to a 7-5 college junior was slow and steady.
Male High School Coach Tim Haworth, the former head man at Hopkinsville, says Sharp was a 6-8 junior in 2017-18.
“He might have gotten to 6-9 his junior year, my last year there at Hoptown,” Haworth says. “Then he just kept growing. He became a 7-footer at Hoptown (as a senior) the next year, after I left.”
At John A. Logan, they listed Sharp at 7-3.
Now at 7-5 in his first year at WKU, is it possible Sharp is still growing?
“I hope not,” he says. “Seven-foot-five is tall. Being over 7-5, is too tall.”
There are unique problems that come with being 7-5.
“Hitting my head on things,” Sharp says of challenge number one. “I was walking under the tunnel to come into the (Diddle) Arena and I thought I had my head ducked low enough to miss it — but I didn’t. I hit the concrete with my head. That hurt.”
Buying clothes at 7-5 can be a complex task.
“For pants, it’s pretty hard,” Sharp says. “Jackets and stuff, not that hard because you can get a 2X or extra large. Pants are challenging because no one is 7-5. So no one has legs this long. Companies don’t really make pants this long.”
His saving grace, Sharp says, is the “Big and Tall” section of Nike.com. “I’m comfortable with sweatpants,” he says.
If it weren’t true, you would think the back story of how Sharp came to be at WKU is, well, a tall tale.
In February 2018, Stansbury went to Christian County High School to scout the 8th District Tournament semifinals matchup between Hopkinsville and University Heights Academy.
“I think he was there to see KyKy Tandy,” Haworth says of the then-UHA star guard.
The WKU head man noticed Sharp on the Hopkinsville bench.
“We were talking and (Stansbury) said, ‘What about the big kid?’” Haworth recalls. “I said, ‘I think he has a chance to be a pro one day. He’s just a late bloomer.’”
To give the Western head man a chance to see Sharp’s potential, Haworth worked him out at halftime. “I had him shoot jump hooks over his left and right shoulder,” Haworth recalls.
Stansbury liked what he saw enough to offer Sharp a Western Kentucky scholarship after the game.
After Sharp showed enough promise as a junior-college player to draw offers from Baylor, Louisville, Oregon, San Diego State, South Carolina and West Virginia, he remembered who had been first to view him as a college prospect.
WKU “is where my heart was,” Sharp says.
Through 11 games at Western, Sharp’s offensive production has almost exclusively come off dunks — either put-backs or alley-oops off pick-and-rolls.
Sharp says — and Haworth backs him up — he has more offensive skill than he is currently showing.
“My free throws and my hook shots, before the game(s) and in practice, I am knocking them down,” Sharp says. “During the game(s), it’s harder. I am thinking too much about it and I miss it.”
Jamarion Sharp hopes you will continue to see his game grow, even as he hopes he has stopped growing at 7-5.
Saturday
Louisville at Western Kentucky
When: 3 p.m. EST
TV: CBS-27
Records: Louisville 7-3, Western Kentucky 7-4
Series: Louisville leads 42-39.
Last meeting: Louisville won 75-54 on Dec. 1, 2020, in Louisville.
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 4:19 PM.
