COBLESKILL’S PRINCE JACKSON NAMED NJCAA FIRST TEAM BASKETBALL ALL-AMERICAN

The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) announced today that SUNY Cobleskill men’s basketball team member Prince Jackson, Schenectady, NY, Schenectady High School, has been named a First Team All-American for the 2003-04 season. The 6’6” senior swingman led the Fighting Tigers to a 25-7 overall record marking the tenth consecutive season the Cobleskill program has reached the twenty-win plateau in route to the program’s twelfth consecutive NJCAA Region III Tournament appearance.

“Without a doubt, Prince is one of the best players that we have had in the program during my time as head coach and we are very proud of what he has accomplished,” said Fighting Tiger Head Coach Kevin McCarthy. “People always ask me about who is the best player that I’ve coached at Cobleskill and I’ve always make it a point not to answer that question. However if someone were to come up to me and tell me that Prince is the best player we’ve ever had here, I’m not sure that I could argue against that statement. Prince’s high school coach Mark Sausville told me that we were getting a very good basketball player when we signed Prince and he was absolutely correct.  Beyond that, Prince is a credit to his family and his community. We’re going to miss him next season on many levels.”  

During the season, Jackson averaged 21.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game in 32 starts for the Fighting Tigers this season. The 6’6” swingman connected on 252 of 545 attempts from the field for a 48.1% mark on the year including an impressive 53 of 139 from beyond the three-point stripe. The Cobleskill co-captain also hit on 102 of 143 attempts from the charity stripe for a 71.3 % average. He closes his career as the program leader in career scoring with 1132 points and finishes fourth in career rebounding with 457 boards. Jackson was recently selected as the Region III Player-of-the-Year and to the Region’s First Team be the region’s coaches along with being named as the Mountain Valley Conference Player-of-the-Year and selected to the league’ First Team by the conference’s coaches. Jackson was also a First Team All-Mountain Valley Conference and the First Team NJCAA All-Region III honors during his freshman campaign.

The Fighting Tigers have now had eight players selected to the NJCAA All-American Team all coming during current Head Coach Kevin McCarthy’s twelve-year tenure. Jackson becomes only the second Fighting Tiger to earn First Team NJCAA All-American honors.