In this morning’s stake: the baseball team moves up to #19 and travels to take on Abilene Christian. Basketball signee Jordan Jackson wants to create his own legacy and basketball target Rob Gray chooses Houston.
Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.
Baseball Moves Up to #19. Texas Tech moved up to #19 in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association after going 3-1 this past week. The Red Raiders will travel to Abilene to take on Abilene Christian tonight with first pitch at 6:30 and then will travel to Kansas State this weekend for a three-game set.
Track & Field Continue Ranking. The Texas Tech track and field teams continue their top 15 ranking as the men are currently ranked #9 and the women are #15 this week.
Jackson a Legacy. LAJ’s Daniel Paulling has a nice feature on Texas Tech shooting guard signee, Jordan Jackson, who is the son of Sheryl Swoopes. Jackson, 6-3/175, is from the Houston area, St. Pius-X, and averaged 16 points and 7 rebounds a game as a senior and the entire profile is really great. You get an idea who Jackson is as a person and his journey to Texas Tech. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, Jackson may be a bit of a project and his head coach said that he’s catching up:
“I don’t want to say he’s behind,” Carr said. “I just want to say he’s late catching up. His game is catching up to his athletic ability. I think Jordan still has that room to grow all over, physically, mentally. His skills can grow.”
Jackson admitted he didn’t think he was ready to play in the Big 12 a year ago, but he believes his time with Ford helped him and that he’ll continue to progress.
Jackson’s father told him to be patient, reminding him that Swoopes, as good as she was, needed time to develop, time to adjust when moving from high school to junior college to college. He also told Jackson not to worry about comparing himself to his famous mother.
“We look at it from a different lens in terms of what his mom accomplished,” the elder Jackson said. “No woman or man can duplicate what she did. It’s special. God cut that out just for her. He’s giving (Jackson) an opportunity to create his own name and special things for his life.
“No, it may not be to the caliber to what his mother did — or it could be. He could surpass that. Who knows? But who better than the staff at Texas Tech right now to take the skills that he has and experience the learning curve he needs to grow and watch it come together?”
The “Ford” referenced is T.J. Ford, the former UT and NBA player, who runs an AAU team in the Houston area and the “Jackson” referred to is Eric, Jordan’s father.
The interesting thing here is that Jackson is very much a project and it’s pretty uncommon to have a player redshirt, and I wouldn’t expect one here, but I do think that Jackson does need to catch up. Athletically, there are few players as gifted as Jackson. He can jump out of the gym, but he’s got to be terrific from the outside and he’ll be incredibly difficult to guard. Shoot until your arm falls off (not really, but really). I’m glad that we’re sorta tapping the breaks here because not every player comes in and is an instant success and Jackson has parents that know he needs to develop.
Gray Chooses Houston. Kelvin Sampson and Houston snagged Howard College shooting guard Rob Gray.
Howard College guard Rob Gray has committed to Houston
— Brad Winton (@JucoRecruiting) April 13, 2015
I don’t think that Texas Tech felt that this was going to happen for the coaching and I’d watch out for Ty Thomas, a shooting guard from Georgia Highlands College, who averaged 17 points a game.