Jailyn Ingram details journey back onto court for Georgia Basketball

ATHENS, Ga. — The last year has been a long journey for Georgia Basketball’s Jailyn Ingram. A Madison, Ga. native, Ingram transferred from Florida Atlantic, where he spent his first five year of college and is among the Owls’ career leaders in several statistical categories, to his home-state school to play his final year of College Basketball for the Bulldogs. Starting the first nine games of the 2021-22 season, Ingram notched seven double-figure scoring outputs and led Georgia in rebounding on four different occasions. However, with 14:21 to go in that ninth game of the season, Ingram suffered a knee injury, and an MRI the following day confirmed what many believed at the time; he had torn his ACL and his season was over.

All of that came in what was already his sixth season at the collegiate level. With a coaching change and Ingram coming off of an injury, many wrote off the idea that he might try to play again. Not him though, and after being granted an NCAA waiver to play yet another year, Ingram began his work with the team to make it back onto the court for a seventh season.

“First and foremost, to come back I felt like we had unfinished business. I felt like, obviously, I wasn’t able to give my team what I wanted to do. So just hearing who was coming in — familiar faces — I thought I should stay another year, try to do what I wanted to do last year,” Ingram said on Tuesday. “Honestly, since they’ve been here, they’ve been encouraging me to continue to do my rehab, get back and just be patient with everything knowing that, you know, if I’m patient, my number would be called and I’ll come in and help in any type of way.”

Ingram could be found on the side at Georgia practices working with the athletic training staff. Occasionally he’d participate in team drills, but the majority of the time was spent focusing on getting his knee back to a point where he could play. He was eventually cleared to participate in basketball activity, warmed up with the team and spent time on the bench. Georgia head coach Mike White made it clear to all parties involved that while Ingram was a major contributor before the injury, any opportunity to play this year would have to be earned.

“We’ve had a few conversations, one pretty in depth one maybe a week to 10 days ago. He wanted to know, ‘Am I going to have an opportunity?’ You respect that,” White said. “You want guys to want to talk about it, so let’s talk about it. That’s one of the big staples of this program. We’re going to be transparent with one another and we’re going to have real relationships. It was communicated to him again that he’s got to earn minutes and that unfortunately he’s behind these other guys.”

Despite still working to get on the floor, White said that Ingram had been a leader on the team from day one. Described as being “as big of a mouth in the locker room as anyone” by his head head coach, that was all part of Ingram’s plan on how he could find a way to contribute and eventually earn his opportunity.

“Well, if you can’t help the team physically, you’ve got to try and help the team in any other aspect,” Ingram said. “So, I just sat down [with] myself and said, ‘Hey, how can I help the team?’ Right now I’m not playing, so the only thing I use is my voice. So, you know, I just try to be that vocal leader that we’ve been needing, and I’m continuing to do that.”

Ingram’s number finally was called on Sunday afternoon in Georgia’s 62-47 win over East Tennessee State. Despite only playing four minutes and air-balling his only attempt from the field, Georgia coach Mike White said that Ingram gave the team a much needed spark.

“I’m really happy for Jailyn,” White said after the game. “It’s been a long road for him in getting healthy and he’s been through a ton of adversity in his career, worked really hard. He’s had a great attitude. Our guys love him. They rally around him … he was an inspiration to his teammates. I thought he was probably the biggest factor in the game.”

“I had no clue I was going in until after halftime,” Ingram said. “He (White) said there’s a potential chance, so kind of get warm, get on the bike. So I did that, but I still was shocked once my number was called.”

Ingram admitted that he didn’t think getting back on the court would happen this quickly – less than a year after the injury occurred. He was just trying to stay patient through the rehab process and get back whenever possible.

“Just being patient, I knew one night my number was going to be called. I just wanted to control everything that I could control, and that’s rehabbing every day, coming in and being vocal for my teammates and just trying to be the best leader I can until I’m back on the floor,” Ingram said. “… It was hard. Obviously, everyone wants to play. But like I said, there was nothing that I could really control. It was a bad situation just to be in, so I just had to wait for my time and just be as positive as I could be.”

“It meant a lot,” he added about the moment he checked back in the game. “I haven’t had that experience in almost a year so, you know, it felt good to step on the court, get a standing ovation from the crowd, just overall help the team get some energy and come out with the W.”

Going forward, Ingram’s role remains to be seen. White said he’s still not at 100% and will have to continue to prove to the coaches that he’s one of the best options to be out on the court. If he is however, his skillset would seem to be one beneficial to the team.

“Experience, confidence, he’s a guy that’s scored a lot of points in Division 1 for a long time … He’s good at a lot. He can pass it, dribble it, shoot it, makes good decisions, doesn’t turn the ball over. Small sample size in games, but he’s been really sharp in practice and pretty sharp in terms of what we’re trying to run even though he’s had very little reps offensively,” White said. “His ball decisions have been good, and he brought some physicality to us the other day. He threw his body around with reckless abandon on the glass a little bit. You like to see that, an older, aggressive presence with some confidence.”

Georgia (5-2) takes on Hampton (1-5) Wednesday night at Stegeman Coliseum. Tipoff time is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on SEC Network+.