LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Trayce Jackson-Davis could have kept his name in the 2022 NBA Draft, likely earned a selection late in the second round and started the clock on his professional career.
He didn’t.
Trayce Jackson-Davis could have put his name in the NCAA transfer portal, attracted major attention from schools linked to jumbo Name/Image/Likeness packages and positioned himself as the No. 1 free agent in college basketball.
He didn’t.
Trayce Jackson-Davis could have returned to Indiana University for his fourth season and positioned the discussion about how he wants to be the Big Ten player of the year and leave Bloomington with an equipment bag stuffed with IU statistical records.
Scratch that concept, too.
Three days after he delivered the mildly surprising news that his IU career will stretch across the 2022-23 season, Jackson-Davis outlined his expectations for himself, his teammates and even IU coach Mike Woodson.
He said NIL considerations were not the driving force behind his decision. He said he has already talked with Woodson about changes he would like to see from the coach.
He said that as a fourth-year player and IU leader that he will not have any tolerance for misbehavior like the nonsense that led to five of his teammates being suspended for a game that the Hoosiers lost at Northwestern last season.
And he said, multiple times, that this needs to be the best Indiana team he’s played on, and nobody will have greater expectations for the Hoosiers than Trayce Jackson-Davis.
Here is a slightly edited and condensed version from a Zoom interview session that Jackson-Davis had with more than 30 media members Monday afternoon.
Q: There's two things at play here, right? Obviously, you want IU to be as good as possible and you came back and help them win but you want to be as good as possible. How do you balance that, and what do you ask of Coach Woodson to make sure you can achieve both?
Jackson-Davis: The biggest thing is both, obviously. I want IU to be as good as possible. I think I elevate their team a lot. Just overall, in the sense of me playing away from the basket more, I think pick-and-rolls more, kind of what we did at the end of the season is going to be big, pick-and-pops, stuff like that.
Just using what I use from this NBA draft process going into next year, especially with the feedback that I got.
Q: You talk about what you want to see going forward in the future. You're on the Hoosier Hysterics podcast. You want the offseason work to be changed up. You want the way practice is randomly changed up.
Is that more from an intensity standpoint to be more intense early on, or do you want a (different) approach on the skill set and things you work on?
Jackson-Davis: I think intensity-wise, we have a great team. I think everyone worked as hard as possible. Just the things we were working on, we ran a lot last year with more emphasis on defense. Having more emphasis on the offensive game plan, because our defense is going to carry over from last year. We've just got to speed some of the younger guys up.
I think the biggest thing for us would probably be offensively more sets, stuff of that nature. Just trying to get meshed together more, play with different guys.
Last year, we had two teams, so it was like the starting five and the bench. We would play against each other. We would never switch up the teams. That's where the starting five and the bench players would play together. I think that's huge for us to just get our team chemistry better.
Q: You're the first big draft decision we've seen with the NIL earnings out there for a little while. Did that impact you at all? Did you set a little higher bar for the draft? Or have you seen some of your other friends that have gone through the process affected by it?
Jackson-Davis: Obviously, the NIL with all the like free agency is basically what it is. But with the transfer portal and all of that stuff, it didn't impact my decision. I was never looking at another school or seeing who was going to reach out and give me the most money to go there. So, it was never anything like that.
I was either going to the draft or staying at IU. So, I wouldn't consider the NIL to be a big reason why I stayed even though I know there's probably going to be money there and opportunity there, which I'm blessed to be in that situation.
Obviously, I'm going to use it to my advantage but I'm here to play basketball and I'll finish my degree.
Q: The outside shooting and wanting to expand that part of your game, is that something that you feel like you haven't been asked to do in the past and that you're comfortable doing, or is it something you're not comfortable doing previously?
How do you kind of assess that and how do you integrate that into your game moving forward when you're as dominant as you have been around the paint?
Jackson-Davis: So this is the way Coach Woodson explained it to me. He said, especially last year, I was so dominant on the low block that I really didn't need to do that.
It's still going to be to a sense of where I'm still going to have dominance. I'm not going to just utterly forget about that. The biggest thing for me is adding just a few jump shots here and there to my game.
He said I have to shoot four or five jump shots a game, and I'm still going to get 10-12 shots under the rim. Just adding and incorporating to it, especially in practice to start.
Q: With the nine returning players and four freshmen, do you feel like this is going to be the best Indiana team you've played on? Is there any cap to what you guys can accomplish this year?
Jackson-Davis: Absolutely. I think this is the best team that I've been on since I've been here. ... It's the talent that we have. We have talent all across the board from the guards all the way down to the centers. We have dudes that care about the program, are here for the right things.
I think the big thing that we didn't have last year that we have this year is our team chemistry. Last year, we had three guys come in and start for us that we didn't know, like we never played with them. We had to build our chemistry over the summer.
Having a full year of experience with them and then adding two, three or four freshmen in, I think it's going to be huge for us. I think the ceiling for our team is anywhere from Big Ten Championship to National Championship, if I'm going to be honest with you.
I set my standards high. We had those standards last year, but, obviously, it wasn't the way our season went.
I think now knowing with guys and what they do, their tendencies and what they're capable of, I think it's going to be huge for us. Now, Coach Woodson has a year of college under his belt, and that's going to be big for him as well.
Q: On the podcast, you had mentioned to Coach Woodson that, if guys test positive for drugs, you want them out after their first strike instead of the three-strike situation. Why did you feel that that was something that was important to you?
Jackson-Davis: Well, now just me being a senior, it's different. It's my last year. This is my last time being at IU, and I don't want anything of that nature ruining our season. If you're that selfish to do that during the season, then you don't need to play for this university. I think it's plain and simple.
They've kind of been sticklers about it, but it's always giving chances and chances and chances. Being the team captain, I feel like we've had enough chances. We're mature enough to know what's right and what's wrong. That's a big thing for us. I think it's a big thing with a lot of the teams I've been on with the drugs affecting our team. So we're not having that this year. We have enough to do.
Q: Did you feel like it impacted your team last year?
Jackson-Davis: Not necessarily as much last year. I think more just getting in trouble in general. Obviously, there's things that happen behind the scenes, but I'm not really going to go into that. It definitely has had effects in the past. So, I'll just leave it at that.
Q: If you have a season similar to what you had last year, you have the opportunity to end up as the third leading scorer, first in blocks, first in rebounds for Indiana.
How important would that be to achieve that? But to do that, to not have a Big Ten title with that, how disappointing would it be to not have both?
Jackson-Davis: Exactly. I'm a person who would rather — I'd rather score — or not score 2,000 points. I'd rather get the championship. If I don't need to score that much and we're playing really well, that's what we're going to do. I'm an unselfish player. I'm a team player. But I'm going to do what my coach wants me to do.
I think I have enough talent where I don't have to score 25 points a game. I could easily score 17, 18 points and be fine and I think we'd still win. It's just going to be what our team is like and what's working for us. I'm more set on winning the Big Ten than trying to chase records.
If we're playing the right way, I think the records will come and I'll still be able to get them.
Q: What would it mean to you to achieve that?
Jackson-Davis: To achieve those things, it's huge. There's only four or five players that have scored 2,000 points, and then one player or two players that have had 1,000 rebounds. Just being mentioned in that category with how good those players are, you mention names like Calbert (Cheaney), Steve Alford, Alan Henderson, it's crazy. Just to be even mentioned in that category is huge.
But right now, I'm focused on a championship.
Q: You left out Coach Woodson. You're going to hear about that.
Jackson-Davis: Yeah, Coach Woodson too.
Q: How much did your outlook change from the way you guys finished the season last year, the turnaround in the Michigan game and then what you did in the Big Ten Tournament? How much did that make you more enthused about coming back and taking it to another level?
Jackson-Davis: I just really think it shows, likel when you're playing well, just literally the whole state is behind you, and everyone gets excited. There's teams that I was watching when we were playing. There's teams like Michigan State. There's even other fans. I'm not going to say the name of the teams, but there were other fans cheering.
When Indiana basketball is good, college basketball is good, I'll say that. I think we have a chance to be really, really good next year.
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