Trayce Jackson-Davis is the Most Important Indiana Basketball Player of My Lifetime
March 19th, 2023 is an important date, because it is the date that the most important Indiana basketball player of my lifetime played his last game as a hoosier.
I was born in Bloomington, Indiana in August of 2002. It’s important to distinguish that I was born in August, because in March of that year Indiana made their most recent Final Four run. For my entire life the Indiana men’s basketball program has been working to regain its foothold as a top-tier college basketball program. I grew up with stories of Calbert Cheney, Isiah Thomas and Steve Alford. The ’76 Hoosiers were the last men’s basketball team to have an undefeated season. Coach K didn’t do it. Dean Smith didn’t do it. Rick Pitino didn’t do it. That crown is ours.
I mean sorta. I’m gonna be honest here, there’s only so much stories can do to give somebody an idea of dominance. In order to truly grasp dominance you have to witness it firsthand- I was born 26 years and four months after the ’76 hoosiers won it all.
For most of my childhood I was not witnessing dominance from the Hoosiers, to put it lightly. This changed around 2011. I was in third grade and the Hoosiers were *really* good. Now, they hadn’t been five to ten games under .500 in every season of my life, just most of them. This however, was the first time I was paying attention. Victor Oladipo was breaking out as a sophomore. Cody Zeller was the Big 10 Freshman of the Year. Jordan Hulls was one of my favorite players because he was from Bloomington, and he had a jumpshot that was funky. Christian Watford hit the shot to kill Goliath. Will Sheehey cussed somebody out in the Penn State game and it was sick. Sure they lost in the tournament, but so did everybody else that played Kentucky.
Then in 2012? Uh we were back. Best recruiting class in the Big Ten, top ten in the country. Preseason number one. Big Ten freshman of the year returning. Watford, Oladipo, Sheehey, and Hulls were all back. Among that class was Yogi Ferrell- a five star recruit who played high school basketball at Park Tudor in Indianapolis. Remember him, he’ll come up later. That team ended up winning the Big Ten regular season tournament and grabbed a 1 seed in the tournament, only to lose to Syracuse in the Sweet 16.
After this season things changed. Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller both made the wise decision to capitalize on an incredible season and a weak draft class and went second and fourth overall respectively in the 2013 NBA draft. The team had some rough patches after that, but there were players like Yogi Ferrell, Noah Vonleh, Troy Williams, and James Blackmon Jr that were at the very least entertaining, even if the team was struggling to win.
It took a minute for the program to be rebuilt, but in 2015? We were back (again). Thomas Bryant headlined a freshman class that included future program centerpiece Juwan Morgan and OG Anunoby who went from a three star recruit to the first round of the NBA draft. That team won the Big 10 regular season title and lost to North Carolina in the Sweet 16- they were damn good, once again.
Tom Crean got fired a year later, and then we hired Archie Miller. My parents told me if I don’t have anything nice to say I shouldn’t say anything at all, so I’m gonna gloss over most of the Archie years. There were some highlights though- as mentioned earlier Juwan Morgan became a star and was a key figure in the transfer from Crean to Miller. We landed one of the best recruits in program history with Romeo Langford in 2018. And we got Trayce.
To understand why Trayce Jackson-Davis is important you really need to understand the time in which he was being recruited. Archie Miller needed to get something going *now*. Not in a year, right now. His job depended on it. It’s spring of 2019 and Romeo Langford has not worked out. I want to be careful here because I have no personal ill will towards Romeo from the fan perspective, and frankly it seems like there were some things going on in that program that would’ve made it difficult for that team to win regardless so I’ll just leave it at “it didn’t work out.” But, it’s important to discuss this because we were disappointed and Trayce Jackson-Davis was a big deal. When IU lands an instate guy, it’s just different. That’s why Romeo Langford was such a huge deal, and before him, Yogi Ferrell. If you’re a top 100 recruit that lives in the state and commits to IU it’s gonna get buzz.
And boy was that buzz justified. He averaged a cool 13 and 8 and was one of the bright spots on a team that probably would have made the tournament had it not been for the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Bracketologists who would be better equipped in writing for Sesame Street. Regardless, there was optimism. We had a stud freshman and the bones of a good team around him, we’re ready to rock and roll baby!
That 2020 team did very little rocking and a whole lot of rolling but damn it we had Trayce. Trayce took his most major statistical jump that season, increasing his scoring output by more than five points per game and adding another rebound to his average.
Archie Miller got fired and then we brought in Mike Woodson, a man who I love more than certain extended family members. Trayce Jackson-Davis had a legitimate shot to go to the NBA draft and be selected, but he eventually decided to come back for another season at IU with Mike Woodson.
He didn’t have to do that. Trayce could have gone to get paid, and although he wouldn’t have been a lottery pick, turning down NBA money is pretty huge regardless. Instead, he decided to be a leader through a period of transition. If Indiana was the ship in a storm, Trayce was the lighthouse. He was a steadying presence that was desperately needed for a program that really hadn’t had one since Yogi Ferrell had graduated.
His work was done after last year. After an up and down regular season Indiana, led by Jackson-Davis went on a run in the Big 10 tournament, won a play-in game, and made the tournament for the first time since I was in middle school. If Trayce had said “my work here is done” and gone to the NBA he could have, and we still would have loved him forever.
Instead Trayce stayed for four years. Indiana, for the first time in years, had legitimate hopes of winning the Big 10 with all of the returning players, in addition to the stud freshman class. The season had its ups and downs, but we were back in the tournament.. Purdue loses to a double digit seeded commuter school in Jersey for the second year in a row. Kent State was a semi-popular upset pick and we won that game wire to wire. Everything’s coming up Milhouse.
The funny thing about the NCAA tournament is you can only rest on your laurels for so long, and by “so long” I mean a couple of hours, maybe a day. We were on to Miami, but honestly? From here on out its gravy. We got into the tournament. We won a game. Purdue lost to a 16 seed. I’m pretty thrilled regardless.
And then Miami beat us. Trayce had 23 and 8, but the Hoosiers just could not keep up. So with that, Trayce Jackson-Davis played his last game in the cream and crimson.
I don’t think it’s silly or an exaggeration to say he is the most important Hoosier of my lifetime. Trayce Jackson-Davis was a key figure in a period of transition, the port in the storm for IU. He ended up being first all time in two out of the five main statistical categories- rebounds and blocks, and third in points behind Steve Alford and Calbert Cheney, two names that carry weight in Bloomington to this day.
Trayce put Indiana back on the map. Seriously. Look, I make fun of the Indiana “we’re back” thing as much as, if not more than the next guy! So take it from me- Trayce put this school back on the map. There’s no Jalen Hood-Schifino without Trayce. There’s probably no Mike Woodson without Trayce. Whether you like it or not, Trayce Jackson-Davis did the dirty work to put this program back into a place where it can consistently compete, and he deserves the recognition. So thank you Trayce, for giving this program something to be proud of when pride was hard to come by.
