Well how should I start....
First off I want to thank Coach Simon, Coach Angelucci, Coach Waldenburg, Coach Pomp, Bryce Martin and the rest of the Southern Utah staff, for everything they have done for me. Also thanks to, Coach Days and Coach Johnson who helped me my redshirt year. Coach Simon took a chance on me after an up and down two years at SeattleU when very few D1 schools where interested.
I knew I was better than what I had shown at Seattle and used my redshirt year as a wake-up call to shut up and get better. Honestly it was a hard year but I was blessed to have two assistant coaches, Trent Angelucci and Patrice Days, who worked with me whenever I needed too. After my 18 months off I came out firing. Going into the new year and conference I was averaging 17, 4.5 and 3. I was absolutely murdering. All the obstacles and hard times I had in my career seemed to finally be overcome. All the sacrifices I had made since I left home at 18 made me feel good but never satisfied. Unfortunately, just a few games into conference I sprained my ankle really bad and it slowed me down, and it became as much a mental battle as it was physical. It was a tough pill to swallow as I just wasn't producing like I was the first half of the season. But, the thing about basketball is it's like life, their are plenty of ups and downs but all of your failures and struggles make you stronger.
After my junior season in which I doubled my production in every category. I had a tough choice to make, one that I stayed up at night thinking about for almost 7 weeks after the season ended.
Do I leave the school and staff that allowed me to show the country what I can do or do I grad transfer? For those of you who don't know what that is, a player is eligible to transfer without sitting out a year if he has graduated from his previous university. This would bring me back to the unknown.
I decided to take that risk and bet on myself. I knew I was going to have offers, but the amount of offers I got where overwhelming.
I had 44 D1 offers.
Within a few weeks of announcing that I would be transferring, schools such as DePaul, Oregon, Xavier, Louisville, Loyola Chicago, South Carolina to name a few had all gotten in contact with me. I had all the power conference offers I dreamed of my whole life. Since I was a kid, all I wanted to do was play at a power house but something in me had changed. Not my goals, that will never change, I want to take basketball as far as I can as well as play at the highest level I can, but, as I grew older I know longer cared about the name of a program, more what can I get out of the program and what can I do for a program.
With that being said I've decided to spend my last two years of college ball at The University of British Columbia. Five years later and I'm back where I first fell in love with the game. I'm coming home with three goals, to win a national championship, to prove I'm the best player in Canada and lastly to take the road less traveled and become a pro. Many people are going to ask or wonder why I left D1 when I had every offer I could ever dream of, but honestly I've always been different, I've always went against the grain. I want to try and help bring a championship to UBC which has never been done before!!!!
Basketball has been the one thing in my life I have never stopped loving and I'm excited to come home and get to work. Would love to see you guys who are kind enough to read this article at as many games as you can last year. Thank you!!
-Jadon
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