When University of Toledo’s star player Tre’Shaun Fletcher went down with a knee injury in the Mid-American Conference tournament last season, it provided a glimpse of what could be expected for the Rockets this season.
And one thing that stood out was the exceptional play of point guard Marreon Jackson, who was a freshman at the time.
In the semifinal game against Eastern Michigan, Jackson made eight 3-pointers, including the game-winning 3, on the way to 26 points. He backed that up with 13 points in the title game against Buffalo and earned All-Tournament honors.
With Fletcher graduated, Jackson carried the experience he gained from the MAC tournament into his sophomore season.
“The tournament boosted my confidence a lot,” Jackson said. “With our star player going down in Tre’Shaun Fletcher, multiple people had to step up to get the win against a very good Eastern Michigan team. I carried that over to this year and worked on what I needed to work on. I’m just crafting and perfecting my game every day.”
While the confidence carried over, Jackson’s 3-point shot went cold at the beginning of this season. In the team’s first 10 games of the season, Jackson shot just 21.4 percent (9 of 42) on 3s.
“It wasn’t so much that I was pressing; it was just my mechanics were a bit off,” Jackson said.
With a bit of a break after a win over Marshall, Toledo coach Tod Kowalczyk showed Jackson video of his shots so far this season. He noticed a flaw in Jackson’s shot that needed to be corrected.
“I don’t like to mess with a shot when we have a lot of games,” Kowalczyk said. “We had a little bit of a lull, and he and I watched every shot. I noticed some fundamental things he was doing. As soon as we had a break to work on it, we watched every single shot he had in the first 10 games of the season. He saw what the flaws were and fixed it.”
Since that point of the season, Jackson has improved his 3-point shooting to 37.6 percent (32 of 85) over the last 16 games, and his 38 percent mark in MAC play is 15th in the conference.
Fletcher was the main distributor on the court for Toledo last season, and Jackson has had to adjust to having the ball in his hands more often this season. So far, Jackson has been able to balance scoring (11.1 points per game) and his role as the floor general, as he is fifth in the MAC in assists per game at 4.4.
He has shown a great ability to find the team’s shooters like Nate Navigato and Jaelan Sanford for open shots, especially in transition.
“He has great vision in transition,” Kowalczyk said. “He gets a lot of his assists in transition. He’s really starting to understand the role of being the coach on the floor, and that’s what the point guard needs to be.”
Current Toledo assistant coach Justin Ingram returned last season to the Rockets after a standout career as a point guard himself. He said he didn’t know too much about Jackson but was immediately impressed with the poise of the Garfield Heights High School product.
“I had friends in Cleveland that said he shot the ball well and was a really good passer,” Ingram said. “He was better than expected. He came in, and he was ready to play right from the jump. You could always tell how much of a leader he was. He came in with a lot with a lot of swagger and a lot of confidence. He had no problem telling people what to do or where to go. He definitely had no problem taking the big shot from the moment he stepped on campus.”
Jackson benefitted from Fletcher's playmaking ability last season. This season, Jackson has the role of lead playmaker.
“You had a MAC player of the year in Tre’Shaun Fletcher who had the ball probably 75 to 80 percent of the time,” Ingram said. “This year it’s Marreon who has that job. As the season has gone on, it’s been a learning process. He started off well, but he’s gotten a lot better. He plays with great pace, and he reads the defense and sees who is open. He’s done a good job of figuring it out.”
According to Kowalczyk, the next step in Jackson’s development is to take better care of the basketball.
“He has to reduce his turnovers,” Kowalczyk said. “Turnovers lose games. We can’t have Eastern Michigan, for example, with five turnovers in a game. It’s hard to win when you turn the ball over. He needs to understand that we need to value every possession.”
Ingram can see that Jackson possesses charisma and poise that are rare for a young player, and he said Toledo players turn to Jackson for leadership.
“I think he has a great chance to be a really good point guard — one of the best point guards in Toledo history,” Ingram said. “It’s going to take a lot of work. His confidence is ready for that. He expects to do those types of things. He came in as a freshman expecting to do those things. If he keeps listening and learning, I think the sky is the limit for him.”
First Published February 21, 2019, 8:07 p.m.
