Nation Zeroes in on Seward Guard

Tucked away in the southwest corner of the great state
of Kansas, the small town of Liberal has seen a recent spike at their
local airport which normally only has a handful of flights come in and
out of it each day. For some reason the added arrivals and departures
seem to be on Wednesday and Saturday nights, which point directly to a
culprit that can be found in what is known as the ‘Greenhouse’ on those
evenings.

Seward County Saints sophomore point guard Jeremy Jones,
is highly regarded as one of the top junior college recruits in the
country and day by day adds new suitors to his already large list or
major Division 1 programs salivating at the chance of having him in
their backcourt for next season. Jones, who is currently averaging 18.1
points and 4.6 assists per game overall on the season for the 23-6 and
Jayhawk West Champion Saints, amped his game up even another notch to
lead Seward to their first conference crown in the past three seasons by
leading the league in scoring in conference games at nearly 20 points
per game while still creating for his teammates with an identical 4.6
assists per conference tilt. The 6’2 combo guard from Chicago, who
hails from the same high school as Bulls star Derrick Rose, seems to wow
even on his off nights. "I was apologizing for the way we played to two
Big 12 coaches who flew in to watch us play the Dodge City game when we
as a team and Jeremy as well didn’t play his best and they cut me off to
say that he could play for their team any day" Saints Assistant Coach
Jay Cyriac laughed. "We get spoiled watching him play every night and
don’t realize that even in a game that you don’t seem to notice him as
much he still ends up with 17 points and 6 assists" he continued.
Jones’ off nights, if you can even call them that, have come few and far
between this season as he has scored at least 13 points in 17 straight
Seward games and has been over the 20 point mark 12 times this season.
He has not been padding his stats against inferior competition either as
some of Jones top games this season have come against the nation’s elite
with a 26 point game against, then undefeated, and 14th ranked Odessa, a
22 point, 6 rebound effort against #1 Missouri State-West Plains in a
Seward County win, and a 26 point, 6 assist performance on the road at
then #1 Hutchinson to start conference play. "Big time players step up
in big time games" Seward Head Coach Bryan Zollinger said. "Jeremy has
been the model of consistency for us all year long and has elevated his
game when we needed him most. He is a special player" he added.

Jones talents have not gone unnoticed this season as he
has now placed himself on the radar and in the sights of over 30
different Division 1 programs hailing from 21 different states and 16
different conferences. He has had Head Coaches Bob Huggins of West
Virginia, Buzz Williams of Marquette, Frank Martin of Kansas State, Jeff
Capel of Oklahoma, Travis Ford of Oklahoma State, and Jim Boylen of Utah
just to name a few, fly into Liberal to take a look at his talents.
Jones list of interested parties also includes Big 10 schools such as
Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, the Pac-10’s Arizona State, as well as the
ACC’s Roy Williams led North Carolina. While it is hard to believe that
a 21 year old could stay away from the hype during all of the attention,
Jones has. He has verbalized to many schools that he will not even
begin thinking about what his next move will be until his Seward County
season is done, saying "right now I need to have all my focus and
attention on what we (Seward County) is doing on the court. It is fun
getting to know all of these coaches and hearing what they have to say
but all I am interested in right now is trying to get my team to the
National Tournament" Jones said. "Once our season is done, whenever
that may happen, I will probably take a couple of days to get my head
clear and then start narrowing things down to where I can take my
official visits and then make a decision" he continued. Jones looks
like he has his Saints primed to making a run at that NJCAA National
Tournament as Seward will enter the start of the Region VI Tournament on
Tuesday as the #1 overall seed and will square off with the #16 Labette
Cardinals in the Greenhouse in the first round before hopefully heading
to Wichita next weekend to compete for the National Tournament bid in
the tournament finals.

For a complete list of Division 1 schools that have
expressed an interest in Jones please see the list below. To keep a tab
on Jones and his Saints as the 2010-2011 season heads into the home
stretch make sure to stay tuned to www.scccsaints.com for updated game
recaps as well as information about Jones recruiting as he begins to
narrow his list of choices down before making his final decision.

SCHOOLS INTERESTED IN JONES

Arizona State

Arkansas St.

Austin Peay

Eastern Illinois

Houston

Illinois

Illinois State

Illinois-Chicago

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas State

Lamar

Marquette

Mercer

Nebraska

Nevada

North Carolina

Northern Colorado

Oklahoma

Oklahoma State

Sam Houston State

San Jose State

South Alabama

South Florida

Stephen F. Austin

Stony Brook

TCU

Texas State

Texas-San Antonio

UC-Riverside

Utah

West Virginia

(Roy Allen)