RE: Nice add for Coach Beard
Just in case link didn't work:
Jackson is ‘Strong, Physical’ Force for NWF State
Posted: Mar 03, 2015
By TRAVIS MEWHIRTER
NICEVILLE — A little more than a month ago, Steve DeMeo stood near midcourt at The Arena following another easy win in a season full of them, and even the basketball coach of nearly three decades at all levels had to marvel.
Jalen Jackson had just had a night doing Jalen Jackson things — hitting 3-pointers one minute, careening down the floor as the self-appointed point guard at a velocity no 6-foot-6 person should be able to reach the next, snatching rebounds 12 feet in the air, dunking with a violence that suggested the rim had done something to seriously tick off the sophomore out of Arkansas.
Afterwards, DeMeo posited that Jackson may be as apt to play tight end or free safety as he is small forward for a top-flight junior basketball team and, more than likely by this time next year, a top-flight Division I basketball team.
"He's strong and physical and tough," DeMeo said. "Jalen's best basketball is ahead of him, too. Like everybody else, he's gotta keep working. He creates havoc for people. He's got quick hands, he guards on the ball really well, and he can rebound, and he can shoot the three a little bit. "He can get up around the rim with an ecstatic dunk. He's really, really gifted, and he's a good teammate as well."
Jackson is, all at once, exhilarating and exhaustive, a chaotic blend of awesome athleticism and grace that no one team has been able to find an answer.
He's averaging nearly 18 points per game, tops on the best team in the Panhandle Conference, and doing it at a 59-percent shooting rate.
If you watch a Northwest Florida State game, any game, odds are that Jackson is the one you will come away remembering.
He's the one who makes the SportsCenter quality highlights, the put back dunks, the gravitydefying contortionist finishes that seem like a pretty terrible idea— and DeMeo will attest that many are — but somehow wind up resulting in two points and an arena full of slack jaws.
"I've always been very athletic," Jackson said. "I like the dunks, I like the dunks. Most players that guard me are smaller than I am, so I just take advantage of that."
Benji Bell, the model of consistency that he is, won the Panhandle Player of the Year, and justifiably so.
But Jackson may be of the most value because of the unsolvable matchup issue he presents.
Because how, exactly, is a team supposed to guard a 6-foot-6 wrecking ball who will bulldoze smaller defenders and roast the bigger ones, who is just as likely to pull up from three as he is to challenge the low post defenders at the rim?
Then take into account the fact that Jackson can body up with a center or lock down a point guard, and he becomes a matchup nightmare no matter where he is on the court.
"He can do everything — shooting, driving, making good decisions, play defense, he brings everything to the table," guard Xavier Moon said. "People don't know what to do with him because he can do everything.
"People can't stay in front of him."
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