Throughout the majority of his basketball career, Jeremy Jacob has experienced almost entirely successful seasons on the court. But as he and the rest of the Oregon men’s basketball team face the tail end of another losing campaign in the Pacific-10 Conference, Jacob has pushed through the adversity and stepped up as a leader for the Ducks as the season begins to dwindle down.
“I feel more comfortable, and coach has been asking (the team) to give it to me more since I’ve been going,” Jacob said. “Whoever gets going, he wants them to get the ball. I’m lucky enough to just start scoring.”
Taking a look at Jacob’s background prior to his arrival at Oregon, it comes as no surprise that the 22-year-old redshirt sophomore has been shining during this crucial stretch of the season. Crucial not in the sense of tallying wins and losses — for the Ducks have lost five straight, again — but in the development of the team’s character for years to come.
“This team has really grown over time,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “The adversity is really toughening them up, and I’m just talking about the adversity of life that they’re going through with some life lessons and some of the noise that they hear, and they really have to kind of circle the wagons a little bit.”
As a senior in high school, Jacob averaged 14.5 points and 10 rebounds per game, leading Woodlawn High School to the Louisiana state 5A championship game. After being named to the first-team All-State squad and being deemed one of the top 100 prospects in the nation (22nd-best small forward) by Scout.com, Jacob decided to leave his home town of Baton Rouge and take his game to the Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia.
Jacob spent one year at Hargrave, where he averaged 24 points and 12 rebounds en route to a 36-5 season, while also gaining valuable life skills and military training when he wasn’t on the court. From there, he went on to play in the highly-competitive Southeastern Conference (SEC) for the Georgia Bulldogs.
As a true freshman, Jacob played in the first six games for the Bulldogs before going down with a foot injury. He was granted a medical redshirt after missing the remainder of the season.
Jacob feels that his time at Georgia has helped him mentally get through the ups and downs of the Ducks tumultuous season.
“We weren’t doing real well in the regular season of the SEC Conference,” he said. “But then we ended up winning the (conference) tournament and got to the NCAA tournament. That’s going to our main focus with this team.”
Following that season, Jacob moved yet again, this time to Chipola College in Marianna, Fla., where he met up with now-fellow Oregon teammate Malcolm Armstead. The two helped compile a 32-game winning streak before seeing it come to an end in the semifinals of the National Junior College Athletic Association Men’s National Basketball Championship tournament. Jacob averaged 8.9 points and 7.8 rebounds during his lone season at Chipola, before making his next, and hopefully final, move to Eugene. His decision heavily influenced that of Armstead.
“He actually told me when he committed here,” Armstead said. “He was telling me that I was going to come to Oregon before I had enough thought about coming on (an official) visit.”
Having seen Jacob play for an entire year at Chipola, Armstead was not at all surprised by his recent outbreak. Saying that last year he could “just give it to (Jacob) anywhere in the half court set” and know that something positive was going to come from it.
After a stellar trip to the Bay Area in late January, Jacob has been able to retain his starting spot in the lineup and has scored in double figures in seven of the Ducks’ last nine games. The recent outburst includes two career-high 19-point performances against USC on Jan. 30 and Stanford on Feb. 18.
Kent believes that since Jacob has now had some time to improve his strength and overall conditioning, his strong play wasn’t going to follow much farther behind.
“He’s a guy that had to get here and get used to the work,” Kent said. “His body has changed, the weightlifting has really helped him, he’s getting stronger.
“He’s not what we call a very gracious runner, but he’s starting to learn how to run.”
During that nine-game stretch, Jacob is averaging 11.3 points and 5.3 rebounds per outing, while playing the bulk of the minutes as sophomore center Michael Dunigan nurses a hip injury and has missed the last two games.
Jacob has been one of the few Oregon big men who have been able to consistently stay healthy this year, with fellow sophomore Josh Crittle battling several minor leg injuries and senior Joevan Catron having not played since Oregon lost to Portland on Nov. 21 with a severe back injury.
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