Hubert Davis praises Ian Jackson for improvement through freshman season

North Carolina has gotten a big boost over the past three weeks from their five-star freshman in Ian Jackson.

While speaking to the media, Hubert Davis discussed Jackson’s growth over the first half of his first collegiate season. That started with his development on the defensive side of the floor with that only adding to his overall game.

“He’s obviously getting a lot better defensively. It’s always, I think, an adjustment for freshmen. It’s just much different defensively going from high school to college. I mean, high school, it’s, generally, you play defense when your man gets the ball. In college, that’s just, that’s just not how it works. You know, in order to be a good defensive player, you actually have to play defense before you play defense to prepare yourself for if and when your man gets the ball,” said Davis on Monday. “Ian has gotten better each day at understanding that and doing that. And I’ve told him specifically that I think he can be an elite defender and that one of the things that I want him to be is a two-way player – a guy that can shut down a guy and a guy, from an offensive standpoint, that can score at will.”

That said, Davis isn’t at all surprised by the improvement of Jackson to this point. He has shown him how much he wants to better himself as an overall player as he can.

“I think it has everything to do about who he is as a person and a player and a teammate. I’ve said this to a number of people. Every day, every night, he sends me a text and he says ‘Coach Davis’. That’s it. And then I text back ‘Player Jackson’. And then he texts back and he says, ‘Coach, what can I get better? What can I work on?’. And so you have a, you know, really talented player that wants to learn and wants to get better and wants to grow,” Davis said. “I think it has everything to do with the type of character, the type of his kid he is and that he wants to be good at every area out there on the floor.”

Jackson is averaging 15.4 points and 3.5 rebounds on splits of 50.9% overall and 42.9% from three over his 16 appearances for UNC. That includes this recent stretch as, over the past six games, he has posted 23.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, and an assist on 54.1% from the field and 42.4% from distance.

Davis is quickly becoming one of the Tar Heels’ best players with how he’s started to play since the holidays. That all comes from his want to get better and better while in Chapel Hill.

“He’s just doing a really good job. He’s getting better every day,” said Davis. “You’re exactly right. He’s improving day to day.”