TUESDAY, 9:22pm: Jackson intends to hire an agent, Jon Rothstein of CBSSports.com tweets. If Jackson does indeed secure representation, it would eliminate his ability to return to Notre Dame next season.
MONDAY, 7:58am: Notre Dame junior point guard Demetrius Jackson will enter his name in the draft but hold off on hiring an agent, as Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv confirms (Twitter link). Coach Mike Brey indicated as much after the Fighting Irish’s loss Sunday to North Carolina, though Jackson stopped short of stating his intentions, according to Tom Noie of the South Bend Tribune (Twitter links). No final decision is due until May 25th, the deadline for early entrants to withdraw from the draft and retain their college eligibility.
Projections are split for the 21-year-old who ranks No. 11 in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress listings but just 25th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. A shallow point guard crop and Jackson’s intriguing set of tools led to his high DraftExpress ranking, Givony tweets. Jackson no doubt helped himself Sunday when he scored 26 points against the top-seeded Tar Heels. He’s averaging 15.8 points, 4.7 assists and 2.2 turnovers per game, but it’s his capabilities, including his explosiveness, strength, scoring ability, playmaking and defense, that make the case for him rather than production, according to Givony and DraftExpress colleague Mike Schmitz.
Jackson’s numbers nonetheless steadily improved throughout his college career. He averaged just 6.0 points per game as a freshman after entering college as the No. 33 prospect in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index.
I’ve been really impressed by what I’ve seen out of Jackson in the Tournament. He’ll probably be taken closer to Givony’s projection than Ford’s.