No sophomore slump for Roadrunner basketball's Jhivvan Jackson

UTSA guard has picked up right where he left off after banner freshman season

SAN ANTONIO - – UTSA men's head basketball coach Steve Henson calls him the ultimate gym rat. Its no surprise to anyone that knows the Roadrunners' star sophomore guard Jhivvan Jackson.

"What's amazing about a guy that had such a good freshman season is that he's come back and had an even better sophomore season," Henson said. 

Jackson has managed to combine talent, toughness and grit into one of the best individual seasons by a UTSA basketball player. One year after winning Conference USA Freshman of the Year honors, Jackson is playing even better as a sophomore, this despite enduring an ACL tear that ended his freshman season early. 

"It's been amazing, you know, especially after having the injury end my season early last year," Jackson said. 

To go along with conference freshman of the year honors, Jackson was a seven-time conference freshman of the week and set the UTSA freshman record for points in a season. Since his return from the ACL injury Nov. 19, Jackson has twice earned confernece player of the week honors and led his team to a three-way tie for the C-USA lead. 

"He was a guy that could flip the switch and drop 30 on any given night," Henson said. "He can still do that, but we challenged him to really apply that effort to practice this year. He's done that and its taken his game to the next level."

The ability to fine tune an already high level of play is what is poised to take Jackson far in a game that he loves. 

"I just want to be remembered by will of winning," Jackson said. "Honestly wherever basketball takes me, I don't really have a main, main goal. Whether it's overseas, Puerto Rico, the NBA, I just want to keep playing basketball at a high level."