Kansas University has secured its first men’s basketball commitment of the Bill Self era.
Darnell Jackson, a 6-foot-9, 236-pound high school senior-to-be from Oklahoma City, Friday night orally committed to the Jayhawks over Oklahoma, Arizona, Illinois, Purdue and New Mexico.
Jackson, who averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds his junior year at Northwest Classen High — he’s transferring to Midwest City High for his senior year in suburban OKC — called Self with the good news Friday hours after Jackson returned from Nike All-America camp in Indianapolis.
“Coach Self was very happy. He said he wanted to coach me and make me a better player,” Jackson told the Journal-World via cell phone from his car Friday night in Oklahoma.
In a wild twist, Jackson was giving incoming KU freshman J.R. Giddens a ride home. Giddens is a former OKC John Marshall High standout and one of Jackson’s best friends.
“I am real happy. I feel good about Kansas. I’ve loved it ever since I first visited there,” said Jackson, who attended the last two Late Night With Roy Williams on unofficial recruiting trips. “I love coach Self and the way he coaches. When he left Illinois and went to Kansas (last April) it was a great match.”
Jackson, a former football tight end, has played basketball just three years. He’s known as a power player, a rugged rebounder and hard worker with a still-developing offensive game.
“I love to crash the boards, run the floor and do what it takes to win the game,” Jackson said Friday.
It was tough for him to decline an offer from Oklahoma.
“My family wanted me to go to OU, but I couldn’t see myself going to OU. I could only see myself going to Kansas and playing on a championship team with J.R. and Jeremy and all the other great players at Kansas,” he said of Giddens and Jeremy Case, a 6-0 freshman from McAlester, Okla.
Jackson’s mother, Shawn, said Friday she was elated for her son, though she would have to get used to her son living in another state.
“I mean, I am an OU girl. This is my home,” Shawn said with a laugh. “He said to me, ‘Mama are you mad at me?’ I said, ‘Of course not.’
“I’m a proud mother right now. Like I tell everybody, Darnell has loved Kansas. He’s gone out there and made himself a good player. He’s gone out there and played hard to let coach Self know he wanted to play at Kansas.
“I’m very proud of him and happy he will be playing for coach Self. I love coach Self. I told him I couldn’t find anything wrong with him or the program. I told him, ‘Every time I ask about you, nobody has a bad word to say about you.'”
Self cannot comment on recruits in accordance with NCAA rules.
Coincidentally, it had been reported on the Internet late this week that Darnell Jackson was ready to commit to Arizona after his strong performance at Nike, where Self and Arizona coaches scouted many of Jackson’s games.
Untrue, said Jackson, who said he had been considering a Kansas offer for “a long time.”
“I wasn’t gonna commit there (UA), but it doesn’t bother me what they write. I don’t let that stuff affect me,” Jackson said.
“We read the Internet,” Shawn Jackson said. “We saw there was a little scare that he would verbal to Arizona. That was not the case. I said I was willing to let Darnell go down there and visit but he wasn’t ready to commit.”
Jackson will sign an official letter of intent with KU next November.
Self now has two scholarships left during the upcoming school year. KU’s coach has said he definitely wanted a point guard in this class, meaning scholarship No. 3 could go to somebody like 6-9 Kalen Grimes of St. Louis.
KU is looking at many guards, including A.J. Price, 6-1 of Amityville, N.Y., and A.J. Ratliff, 6-2 of Indianapolis.
