Five-star recruit GG Jackson says Frank Martin firing spurred commitment to UNC
Surrounded by friends, teammates and loved ones, five-star 2023 recruit G.G. Jackson stood up in the Ridge View High School gymnasium Wednesday afternoon and placed a North Carolina Tar Heels hat on his head.
The much-hyped local prospect — viewed by some as the top recruit in the 2023 class — picked UNC over the likes of Duke, Auburn and Georgetown. And much to the chagrin of South Carolina fans who have fawned over Jackson for two years, he also picked the Tar Heels over the hometown Gamecocks.
Former USC head coach Frank Martin was one of the first coaches to offer Jackson in 2020, and the Gamecocks were believed to be heavily in the mix if not favored for the 6-foot-9 forward’s services. But Jackson said that Martin’s firing from USC on March 14 altered the landscape. If Martin — who now coaches at UMass — hadn’t been fired, Wednesday’s decision might’ve been different.
Just how close was Jackson to putting on a Gamecocks hat instead of a Tar Heel blue cap?
“I don’t know if I want to answer that; I don’t want get anybody mad,” Jackson said Wednesday with a sheepish smile. “But coach Martin, he’s definitely my guy. He’s still showing love even though I’m not going to UMass and unfortunately South Carolina let him go. But that’s still my guy.
“When South Carolina let go of coach Martin, I feel like that shifted things, and I finally I knew exactly where I wanted to go.”
Jackson said that he settled on UNC about “the second or third week” after USC fired Martin. It helped, certainly, that Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels went on an NCAA tournament run to the national title game and beat rival Duke — another school Jackson was considering — in a historic Final Four matchup in New Orleans.
After Martin landed at UMass, he tried to recruit Jackson to the Minutemen, though UMass was never expected to be a serious contender. Still, Martin established strong ties with Jackson’s family, and those relationships as well as USC’s proximity to home were alluring factors for Jackson and his family. Jackson’s father, Greg Jackson, complimented Martin on the way he recruited his son and said the Gamecocks were close in the competition until his firing.
“It was really close, probably would have been a coin toss,” Greg Jackson said. “Coach Martin did a really good job. I mean — really good job. He connected with the family really well at all levels.”
Hired in the third week of March, Paris had little time to establish a connection with Jackson and his family, but he did make an effort to visit with Jackson and his family. Jackson’s father said he thinks Paris is “going to be very successful” at USC and is a “great guy.”
And G.G. Jackson said he still considered Paris and the Gamecocks even after Martin was let go.
“I definitely still had interest,” Jackson said. “I wanted to hear him out to see what he could bring to the table. I didn’t want to put South Carolina just out of the mix just yet because it’s down the road from my house, so you can’t leave them out.
“I want to thank Coach Paris for coming down and talking to me. He told me that he knew he was a little late to the party, but I still wanted to hear about him.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 4:51 PM.
