A year could make quite the difference.
Bullish 6-foot-3, 205-pound point guard Jaeden Zackery authored a breakout year at Scotland Campus, going from unknown to one of the top remaining point guards on the prep market.
Flanked by a barrage of Division-I players, including Norrance Tres Berry (Rhode Island), Darlinstone Dubar (Iowa State), Abou Ousmane (North Texas), Jayson Woodrich (Cleveland State), and Terell Strickland (James Madison), Zackery averaged 14 points and a team-best 6.6 assists. He shot it at a 45.2 percent clip from 3-point range as well as a scalding 80 percent from the free throw line.
Zackery’s unique combination of poise and fiery competitive nature at the point guard position enabled him to flee obscurity.
Zackery, who scored 15 first half points to catalyze the Knights’ memorable 101-69 thrashing of The Patrick School (NJ) in the GAC championship, has witnessed his stock grow significantly on the recruiting market this off-season.
And so the worldwide coronavirus pandemic hasn’t truncated any of the buzz generated by the deft passing, hard-finishing Class of 2020 prospect.
Iowa State, Long Beach State, California-Berkeley, South Dakota State, and Loyola Chicago are programs that have now started recruiting him.
Wagner and Coppin State offered Zackery immediately upon seeing him and prioritized him early in his post-graduate year.
The general consensus, however, was that waiting out the process would help higher level programs discover Zackery’s instinctive style and college-ready body.
“For me, part of my role this season was to adapt quickly and become a leader,” said Zackery, who pioneered a well-balanced and high scoring offense as a table setter and a reliable source who comes through with those highly pressurized buckets.
“Being around great players and being coached hard everyday, it maximized everything. I learned that as a point guard, things will have to start with me. That’s a given. If I come out with an edge, everybody else will.”
Zackery put together seven games of eight assists or more. He was an active one on one and on-ball defender who kept guards in front of him.
Beyond his high percentage scoring (he scored 22 points on 11 shots during a win against Capital Christian back in December), he brings a stepback jumper and a dependable 3-point shot. The quickness of his release and his ability to hit heavily contested shots were pivotal factors for the Knights which went 40-4 in 2019-20.
“JZ was definitely one of the top prep school guards in the country this year,” said Scotland Campus head coach Chris Chaney.
“He used his prep school experience to his advantage with his strong work ethic and leadership to help lead us to a 40-win season and top-4 finish in the national rankings. He is college ready to succeed in all aspects with his IQ, shooting ability, toughness, and making his teammates better. He has put himself in a position to be one of the top unsigned guys left. He also defends well and really showed a knack to play in the bigger games. And as much as he succeeded on the court, he is a fine student and a great teammate.”
Following an illustrious career at Westosha Central High School (WI), one in which he averaged 22 points, five assists, and shot the ball at a scalding 64 percent from the floor (en route to being named WI Point Guard of the Year), Zackery felt he slipped through the cracks, recruiting wise.
“I thought that pursuing a post-graduate year would be the best path for me to take to garner more notice and develop more in the court,” said Zackery, who also holds a 3.8 GPA.
Previous Scotland guards such as Koreem Ozier (who is from Zackery’s native Wisconsin area) and Dequarius Nicholas entered their post grad year with a similar hunger for more. Ozier, who starred at Sacred Heart the past two seasons, holds offers from Georgetown, North Carolina, New Mexico, Iowa State, and countless others since weighing his transfer options.
Nicholas, who played with the same two-way toughness and noteworthy mental moxie as Zackery his prep year, posted several 20+ point games as a freshman at Southeast Missouri State University this past season.
“Playing (at Scotland) I felt got me more physically and mentally prepared for college, along with readying me for the daily practices and workload that you experience in college,” said Zackery, who cited his rapport with his teammates as the reason the transition went the way it did.
“It was definitely a different experience coming from a small place where everybody knows everybody to a place where everyone is from all over,” Zackery explained. “Playing for Coach Chaney was a great experience because of the standard he held us to and because he was always pushing us to our best. You could definitely see the improvement throughout the season.”
