Jackson’s continued development could dictate KU’s long-term prospects

By Henry Greenstein     Oct 25, 2023

article image Chance Parker
Kansas freshman Elmarko Jackson shoots the ball during the Bill Self Basketball Camp scrimmage on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at Allen Fieldhouse.

As goes Elmarko Jackson, so go the Jayhawks?

It might not be such a stretch, at least based on what Kansas coach Bill Self said at the team’s media day Wednesday.

“If you’re going to have a crystal ball and say, ‘Who needs to play well to give us the best chance to max out?’, I’d say Elmarko would be at the top of that list,” Self said. “Just because I think he can add an element that this team will desperately need moving forward.”

That critical element starts with Jackson’s quickness, the “unique gear he can get to quicker than anybody else” to become “full speed in two steps,” which Self said has a chance to make him the team’s best athlete. Combine that with strength and toughness, and the freshman guard has a chance to take the preseason No. 1 Jayhawks to new heights.

Not bad for a guy who grew up playing mostly lacrosse — his Hudl profile still has him listed as a junior varsity player at the first high school he attended, St. Augustine Prep in Richland, New Jersey — and is already in competition for a starting role as a first-year college basketball player.

With fellow freshman Johnny Furphy struggling with what Self called a “very severe case” of the shin splints — an affliction he had also dealt with back in Australia — and having missed 10 days of practice as a result, that means either Jackson or sixth-year senior transfer Nick Timberlake will start Sunday’s exhibition game at Illinois.

“Every day’s a battle,” said Timberlake, who called Jackson “super talented.”

How he gets to apply that talent will largely depend on Jackson’s continued adaptation to the rigors of college basketball. But even if he doesn’t start, Jackson will be in a position to spell the longtime KU point guard Dajuan Harris Jr., who said he’s looking forward to Jackson taking some ball pressure off of him. Harris is the lone pure point guard on the KU roster, but Jackson would appear to be next in line to lead the way when Harris is off the floor.

“With the help of Juan and veteran leaders like Kevin and Hunter and KJ, the guys that have been here in this offense, it’s been relatively smooth (learning to take on that role),” Jackson said. “If there’s anything regarding a play or defensive actions or whatever Coach is looking to execute on the floor, I could just go to them and they’ll tell me straight up how it is, and it’s really easy for me to kind of just execute what they’re telling me and how to do it.”

Harris said he has advised Jackson to “do your job, know your role.”

“Really just be ready to defend and don’t turn the ball over because that’s how, when I first started playing,” Harris said, “that’s the reason why I did play a lot, growing throughout the years, because I did my job.”

Jackson, for his part, credited Raphael Chillious, his head coach at the prep school South Kent in Connecticut, with easing his transition to the college level, and starting the journey down a defensive path for a player who admittedly was never a “super defensive-minded guy.”

“He helped me a lot with being more defensive-minded, helping me understand game situations, understand how to be a better winger, and I feel like that’s all just helped me transition a lot easier than other freshmen,” Jackson said.

Defense has continued to be a point of emphasis for Jackson since he arrived in the summer; the first time he spoke to local reporters, following a scrimmage at the Bill Self Basketball Camps in June, he said he knew it was the way for him to get on the floor for playing time. The KU men’s basketball team didn’t practice defense much at all prior to its August trip to Puerto Rico, owing to Self’s philosophy that, as he put it Wednesday, it’s harder to learn to score than to learn to guard, and an offense needs the confidence of scoring early in its existence. But the Jayhawks have been doing defensive shell drills every day and Jackson has embraced that grind.

“I’ve grown to like defense a lot,” he said. “And I understand the value of defense more now, just watching more film with the coaches and stuff like that. It’s just helped open my eyes about what every little aspect means to win at this level.”

The freshman is now about a week away from testing his mettle at Allen Fieldhouse for his first official collegiate game.

“You can’t beat this,” he said. “You can’t beat Allen Fieldhouse. You can’t beat Coach Self and the staff. It’s just a feeling that I got when I came here on my visit that just trumped every other school that I went to. I just felt it deep in my core, like this is a place where I could come, where I needed to be, and I could grow as a basketball player, a person.”

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Written By Henry Greenstein

Henry is the sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as the KU beat writer while managing day-to-day sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (B.A., Linguistics) and Arizona State University (M.A., Sports Journalism). Though a native of Los Angeles, he has frequently been told he does not give off "California vibes," whatever that means.