Topeka — Elmarko Jackson will be charged with playing a pair of positions as a freshman at Kansas. Early in his time in Lawrence, he’s already found himself drawn, correspondingly, to a pair of mentors: point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. and wing Kevin McCullar Jr.
“The way Juan sees the floor as a point guard is, I feel, very underappreciated,” Jackson said Tuesday, “and then Kevin just does everything on the floor that you could imagine.”
Speaking at Brett Ballard’s Washburn University basketball camp in Topeka, where he had just finished imparting some knowledge of his own onto impressionable second-through-eighth-grade athletes, Jackson reflected on how Harris, McCullar and KJ Adams Jr. have all played a role in educating him during his first month in Lawrence.
“Transitioning from high school to college, obviously as you go up levels you’re going to be going against faster, stronger, quicker players, higher IQ, but I feel like having players come back like Kevin, Juan and KJ just helps me adjust a lot quicker,” Jackson said. “They make the game easier, and I can just go to them in between timeouts and stuff like that, ask them questions, see what I could do better.”
If Jackson is able to translate his game successfully from high school, where he was named a McDonald’s All-American after shining at the postgraduate South Kent School in Connecticut, coach Bill Self could have a hard time keeping him off the floor. The combo guard said he and Arterio Morris will be charged with “making the game easier for Juan” and that he wants to come in and “get nasty on defense.”
Between Harris, the reliable distributor and reigning conference defensive player of the year, and McCullar, a staunch defender himself who has been deemed a point guard, shooting guard and small forward at various points during his career, Jackson could emerge with the knowledge he needs to play both guard spots at the Division I level.
Not to mention the education Jackson gets from Self. Jackson said the coach’s tough love and desire to “get the best out of you as a player” is “what (he) committed to KU for” — but that it makes Self’s encouragement all the more rewarding.
“You can mess up in practice, miss a shot, and he’ll tell you ‘Shoot that thing again,'” Jackson said. “I feel like having that from a legendary coach like that just gives you a battery in your back like no other.”
Jackson has yet to even watch a game in Allen Fieldhouse, let alone play. He attended the Late Night in the Phog scrimmage event: “I was like ‘Wow, it’s loud up in here!'” Jackson recalled. “And then (walk-on guard) Michael Jankovich told me, ‘It’s not even anything compared to the games.'”
Even before he takes to the James Naismith Court, though, draft experts have already begun to consider Jackson’s potential to go pro in 2024. He has been the lone Jayhawk featured in most early mock drafts.
Asked Tuesday if seeing Gradey Dick and Jalen Wilson get selected last week gave him confidence or hope for his own future, Jackson said, “It gives me a lot of hope.”
“Every year there’s pros within the team, like this year Kevin, I think Juan is a pro, I think Hunter’s gonna be a pro, KJ, it’s really every single year there’s pros on the team, it’s just developing them,” Jackson added. “Playing in practice against those guys every day is like, iron sharpens iron. We get better based on each other every single day.”
Kansas freshman Elmarko Jackson speaks to and signs autographs for a small group of remaining campers at Washburn University in Topeka on June 27, 2023.
Kansas freshman Elmarko Jackson signs autographs for an ever-growing line of campers after Brett Ballard’s basketball camp at Washburn University in Topeka on June 27, 2023.
Henry Greenstein
Henry Greenstein