Georgia Tech Basketball 2017-18 player previews: #1 Guard Tadric Jackson

Tadric Jackson is coming off a solid junior campaign which saw him come off the bench in 31 of 36 games for Georgia Tech basketball.

In 2016-17, Tadric Jackson was one of Georgia Tech basketball’s best players. The senior from Tifton, Georgia saw most of his time coming off the bench, making just five starts all season. That being said, the junior still had a career year and was a key part of the Jackets offense a season ago. After his career year, Jackson could crack the starting five in 2017-18.

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For the season, Jackson shot at a .446/.325/.567 clip, averaging 12.1 points per game. His .446 shooting percentage was significantly better than his career shooting percentage of .329 entering last season.

Jackson in 2016-17 was one of the biggest pieces of the Yellow Jackets offense last season and saw a huge increase in his shooting attempts all around. When Jackson was on the court, 28.9% of the Jackets plays were used by Jackson. That was the highest usage number of any Jacket who played in 15 games or more. When considering that Jackson was fifth on the team in minutes played and 157 minutes behind Josh Heath, who was fourth on the list, and it’s easy to see just how much the Jackets offense flowed through Jackson when he was on the court.

That being said, when a player has such a high usage number and total amount shots like Jackson, they are often are not the most efficient players. Jackson however, was quite the efficient player with a player efficiency rating of 15.1, which ranked third on the team. Jackson’s efficiency rating benefited from lack of turnovers for the most part with just 60 on the season while averaging one turnover per every 14 minutes.

Next: Player previews: #0 Guard Justin Moore

His significant shooting improvements and his efficiency allowed him to be the third most valuable player on last year team in terms of win shares. The only two players in front of Jackson were Ben Lammers and Josh Okogie.

Defensively, Jackson wasn’t bad but he wasn’t great either. On the season, he was responsible for 24 steals, 7 blocks, and 67 defensive rebounds. Overall, his defensive rating for the season per 100 minutes was 102.2, the lowest of his career. That means, per every 100 possessions that occurred while Jackson was on the court, opposing teams averaged about 102 points per those 100 possessions.

Overall, Jackson in 2016-17 was one of the Jackets most valuable players as showed by the numbers above. After having two lackluster seasons to start his career, Jackson broke out last season and became a key cog for the Jackets. In 2017-18, Jackson should take another step forward and become an even bigger force for Tech. Combine his offensive abilities with that of Ben Lammers and Josh Okogie, and the Jackets could have a scary three-headed monster offensively.

With an average of 20.4 points per 40 minutes last season, the Jackets should look to have Jackson on the court as much as possible. He should start the season in the starting lineup but if he struggles early, the Jackets may resort back to using him off the bench where he succeeded last season. But there is no reason that he shouldn’t be starting when the season begins next month.