9/7/2022 basketball Edit

Season Preview: Trayce Jackson-Davis

Kyler Staley • TheHoosier

Basketball Recruiting Analyst

Don't miss out on any of our exclusive football, basketball and recruiting coverage. Sign up with TheHoosier.com here.

The 2022-23 Indiana men's basketball season gets started in just a few short months which is a perfect time to start looking ahead and breaking down each scholarship player of the roster and previewing what to expect out of them this upcoming year.

Today, we take a look at junior forward Trayce Jackson-Davis with a recap of last season, preview of this upcoming season, plus some notable quotes.

---

Other Season Previews: Xavier Johnson, Race Thompson, Miller Kopp

---

Last Season Review

Like it has been ever since his freshman season, Jackson-Davis was once again Indiana's most productive player on the floor buy such a large margin. After the firing of Archie Miller and Mike Woodson convincing the All-Big Ten player to return for a third year, Jackson-Davis arguably put up his most efficient season wearing an Indiana uniform.

Like projected heading into last season, Jackson-Davis was the focal point on the offense having it run through him consistently which led him to being Indiana's leading scorer and rebounder averaging 18.3 points (58.9% from the field) and 8.1 rebounds per game. On the defensive side is where you saw him make a major leap as he was one of the best rim protectors in the Big Ten averaging 2.9 blocks per game, which was a career high for him.

As an individual player, Jackson-Davis accomplished a ton last season including a 43 point game against Marshall, which was the first time a player on Indiana scored over 40 points in a single game in nearly 27 years. Along with a career high in blocks, he also had a career high in assists averaging 1.9 per game.

Arguably the most memorable moment of last season was the elite level in which he played at during the Big Ten tournament putting Indiana on his back to help them reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2015-16 season. It was the play against Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Wyoming in the post-season that people started to realize at a national scale how dominant of a player Jackson-Davis was. He would make Second Team All-Big Ten due to his fantastic play throughout the year.

2022-23 Season Preview

When Trayce Jackson-Davis opted to withdraw from the 2022 NBA Draft and return to Indiana for his fourth season, it instantly put the Hoosiers in a position to be one of the best teams in the country. Indiana returned the majority of their team, added a talented freshman class, and their best player and leader returned for one last go around.

The post play has never been a question and that will be same for this year as well as he will be as dominant and consistent as he has always been in that area. The question that is brought up each and every year is if Jackson-Davis will be able to expand his game from 15ft and beyond. Mike Woodson certainly wants him to able to do so and from what most have seen, Jackson-Davis has been working on expanding his range and developing a jump shot in the offseason. Now it will be about if he can execute in a game setting.

Defensively, he returns as one of the best shot blockers and rim protectors in the country and has a chance to be an all-defensive player by season's end. He excelled in Woodson's new defensive culture and with another year under him, Jackson-Davis will once again find success on that end.

As far as preseason projections and rewards are being presented, tons of results are seeing Trayce Jackson-Jackson as the favorite to win Big Ten Player of the Year. Indiana, in turn, has been named the favorite to win the Big Ten conference and the return of Jackson-Davis is a big reason why that is. This year, Jackson-Davis has all the opportunity in the world to cement his legacy become one of the truly all-time Indiana greats.

Notable Quotes

"The biggest thing is both obviously," Trayce Jackson-Davis said previously. "I want IU to be as good as possible. I think I elevate their team a lot. Just overall in the sense of me playing away from the basket more, I think pick-and-rolls more, kind of what we did at the end of the season is going to be big, pick-and-pops, stuff like that. Just using what I use from this NBA draft process going into next year, especially with the feedback that I got."

"I think the biggest thing, when I was out in California, I was getting trained like a guard -- ball handling, shooting, just reading movements off the dribble, catch and shoot, and it was a lot of like two-on-two, three-on-three, stuff of that nature to really help work on your outside game," Trayce Jackson-Davis said previously. "So it was all of those components that are really going to help me in the future."

"I think the ceiling for our team is anywhere from Big Ten Championship to National Championship, if I'm going to be honest with you. I set my standards high," Jackson-Davis said previously.

"He (Mike Woodson) wants me, he said I have to shoot four or five jump shots a game, and I'm still going to get 10 to 12 shots under the rim," Jackson-Davis said previously. "Just adding and incorporating to it, especially in practice to start.