Inside The Huskies

UW Signee Jackson Grant Adds SI All-American Top 50 Honors to his Resume

The big man from Olympia, Washington, turns up on most basketball lists these days.
Dan Raley|
UW Signee Jackson Grant Adds SI All-American Top 50 Honors to his Resume
UW Signee Jackson Grant Adds SI All-American Top 50 Honors to his Resume

Jackson Grant was named as a prestigious McDonald's All-American basketball pick last week. This time, he's a candidate for the Sports Illustrated All-American team, having made the cut to 50 before a final 15 is chosen next month.

Grant is a 6-foot-10 big man from Olympia High School in the state capital but without a senior season to play. He's headed to the University of Washington.

There's a lot resting on his geographic shoulders.

Grant not only is counted on to assist greatly in pulling the Huskies out of a lingering downturn, he will be asked to help restore Pac-12 to basketball prominence that has been lacking in recent seasons.

Of the 50 players singled out by SIAA, Grant is just one of eight high school players who hail from states that have Pac-12 schools.

Just three of these guys — Californians Nathan Bittle (Oregon) and Peyton Watson (UCLA) and Grant — are staying in the region to play in the Pac-10.

For instance, Seattle's 6-foot-10 Pablo Banchero is headed for Duke, Frankie Collins of Chandler, Arizona, is going to Michigan, and DaRon Holmes of Goodyear, Arizona, is committed to Dayton.

SI All-American will trim the list of 50 to 15 players on three teams, signifying the nation's very best, and anoint a player of the year. You can find the list here. 

Grant, who averaged 17 points and 11 rebounds per game, appears on most national basketball lists as this mobile, highly skilled big man.

The Huskies, with almost no front-line offensive firepower while suffering through a horrendous 5-20 season, will ask him to step in quickly to help turn things around.

How quickly he can acclimate to the college game remains to be seen.

Yet Grant currently is carrying some heady credentials.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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