Notre Dame Basketball: Jackson Peaking At the Right Time
By Bobby Norell
It’s no secret that guard play is what takes teams far into the NCAA Tournament and Notre Dame basketball’s best guard, Demetrius Jackson, is peaking at just the right time. His play has guided the Irish to their first back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances since they went to three in a row in 1977, 1978 and 1979.
By now it has been well documented that Jackson’s offensive game sputtering going into the tournament, so I won’t bore you with stats. To his credit, Jackson wrote the ship in the first two tourney games against Michigan and Stephen F. Austin. I pointed out after the Michigan game that he could be breaking out of his slump and he did just that against SFA. Jackson led the Irish with 18 points on 6-8 shooting and chipped in with 3 rebounds and 2 assists. He put an exclamation point on his day, when he crossed up his man and then put down an emphatic one handed dunk.
In the first and second round affairs Jackson averaged 14.5 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists. What was even more encouraging is that he shot an efficient 62% from the field, including 50% from three-point land. Going into the tournament his shot was just not falling, so it was good to see him shoot the ball at an efficient rate.
The emergence of sophomore guard Matt Farrell has helped Jackson’s offense come back to life. If you watched both tournament games, you noticed that when Farrell and Jackson were on the court at the same time Farrell brought the ball up the court a majority of the time. This allowed Jackson to be more of a scorer than a distributor and the numbers back that up. His points were up and his assists were down.
Jackson, especially in the game against Stephen F. Austin, was the most aggressive he has been in a while. In the game’s final minutes, Jackson was the one who asserted himself by taking his man off the dribble and either getting a layup or drawing a foul and going to the line. He showed that killer instinct you want from your leader.
The East Regional will feature some of the nation’s best point guards in Jackson, Yogi Ferrell of Indiana, Marcus Paige of North Carolina and Bronson Koenig of Wisconsin. The way Jackson has played to this point, the Irish should be able to matchup well with any of them.
The Demetrius Jackson we saw in the first and second round is the Demetrius Jackson Notre Dame needs in order to keep advancing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because I firmly believe it, but when Jackson is on his game he is the type of guard that could carry a team deep into the tournament. Much like what Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier did for UConn in 2011 and 2014. Now will he do that for Notre Dame? Only time will tell.