At first, jazzy Davidson didn’t even want to play basketball. It might come as a surprise to many, considering the fact that she’s now a standout at Clackamas (Oregon) HS and will be headed to USC next year. But back then, Jazzy just wanted to hang out with her friends.
“My mom just signed me up in kindergarten,” she tells us after practice in January. “She was like, You’re tall. Let’s try this. So, she signed me up for rec basketball in kindergarten and I met some of my best friends through basketball.”
It’s a good thing Jazzy stuck with it, because she’s transcending high school hoops right now as the No. 3 ranked player in the nation. The three-time Gatorade Oregon Player of the Year averaged 26.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 3.8 steals and 2.6 assists per game through 25 games last season at Clackamas, and she knows that what truly separates her from the competition is her versatility on both ends of the floor. That’s exactly the word she uses when describing her game. “I play really well off my teammates without the ball in my hands, so that’s something that I feel kind of separates me a little bit from other top players,” she says. “Also just playing both sides of the ball. Defense is a huge thing for me, and I feel like I get a lot of my offense off of defensive rebounds and pushing it in transition.”
The USC commit will look to refine her game once she gets out to Cali and suits up for head coach Lindsay Gottlieb. What stood out to her most during the recruitment process was how close-knit and “family-oriented” the Trojans, currently ranked fourth in the AP poll, are. She has her sights set on elevating her game in college and winning “a few national championships” at USC, but she knows that in order to get there, she has to put in the work first. And her main focus will be on consistency.
“I know I have a lot of work to do to get there,” she says. “Personally, I feel like I kind of do a little bit of everything, but I can always be more consistent and get better at all the little things that I already do. So, just consistency offensively. And then defensively, just making sure I’m locked in every possession, whether I’m on the ball or off the ball. [I just need to keep] fine tuning things and getting them to be more consistent.”
Portraits by NASHCO Photography