Hunter battles through frosh season
Jaylin Hunter and his dad, Kenya, nearly passed each other in the Texas airways on Wednesday night.
Jaylin, a freshman at Old Dominion University, landed in Houston for a game the next day against Rice. A couple of hours later, Kenya, a UConn assistant coach, took off out of Dallas following the Huskies’ loss at SMU.
It’s about as close as the two have been to each other since the college basketball season kicked into gear after Christmas. Not that they haven’t remained in close contact. Indeed, help and advice from pops is always just a phone call away — and those calls have been frequent.
“Every day,” Kenya quickly pointed out.
Lately, the conversations have largely involved a father urging his son to keep his head up and stay positive while going through the obligatory rigors of a first-year college hoops player.
“As a freshman, it’s a learning phase,” Kenya Hunter said last week. “Going through adversity is only gonna help him grow. We always talk about that. Especially being a young guy, trying to figure it out. He’s doing OK, though, as far as the school. He’s just trying to figure everything out, basketball-wise, where he can fit in and help the team.”
“He tells me to keep my head in it, that I’m not the first freshman that’s ever struggled, or the first freshman ever to have a good game,” Jaylin said by phone. “He tells me through his experience, and the players at UConn’s experience, and I just take all the advice I can get from him and try to use it to the best of my ability.”
Make no mistake, it’s been a tough grind for Jaylin Hunter so far at ODU. The 5-foot-11 guard has played in 23 of the Monarchs’ 26 games, but has had long stretches of minimal playing time mixed in with the occasional multi-minute performance.
Case in point: Hunter went seven straight games without scoring a point or playing more than eight minutes before breaking out with 11 points in 20 minutes on Feb. 1 at Louisiana Tech.
“I was hoping that was kind of a breakthrough game,” he said.
Hunter has scored just two points in the four games since.
Normally a point guard, he’s been moved off the ball recently and is learning that new role. Add all that to a pair of teammates transferring mid-season, and perhaps ODU’s best player (Jason Wade) suffering a season-ending ACL injury recently, and it’s been a tumultuous season.
“Honestly, personally, it’s taken a lot,” Jaylin admitted. “My family, my teammates have kept my head up through the tough times. There have been some tough times this season, I’m not gonna lie. There have also been some good times this season. So, I’m just trying to minimize the bad and focus on the good. Once I can really figure it out, which I believe I can, I’ll just stay in the gym, keep working on my game. I think I’ll get a break here soon.”
It’s a far cry from Hunter’s last couple of years of high school ball. Jaylin’s first and only season as a Connecticut prep player couldn’t have gone much better. Arriving in Connecticut in the spring of 2018, after Kenya had left an assistant’s job at Nebraska to join Dan Hurley’s staff at UConn, Jaylin helped lead East Catholic to a 27-1 record and a Connecticut Division 1 state championship last season.
It was actually Hunter’s second straight state title, having led Omaha Creighton Prep to a Nebraska state championship as a junior.
“It was a pretty good two years for me,” Jaylin understated.
ODU and Boston University were the schools that recruited him the hardest. St. Bonaventure and Fairfield, among others, came on later, but Hunter opted for ODU.
One thing that never crossed his mind: Playing for his father at UConn as a walk-on.
“It’s something we just never talked about,” Jaylin noted. “I think we’re just better like how we are now, pretty much coaching me through the phone and watching film together, but not actually being my coach. It was never really taken into consideration.”
Added Kenya: “I’ve always said I wanted him to have his own journey. He was good enough to earn a scholarship, so I wanted him to go somewhere where he could create his own opportunity and have his own playing career.”
TOUGH BREAK FOR HERON
Mustapha Heron’s collegiate career is likely over.
Heron, the 6-foot-5 St. John’s redshirt senior guard who grew up in Waterbury and West Haven, aggravated a right ankle injury in a loss last week to Creighton. He is likely done for the season and, with that, his collegiate career would be over.
Heron, who starred at Sacred Heart High, began his college career at Auburn, where he made the SEC All-Freshman Team after averaging 15.2 points per game, then averaged 16.4 ppg as a sophomore.
He transferred to St. John’s after his sophomore season to be close to his ailing mother, Thalia (he told Hearst Connecticut Media he briefly considered transferring to UConn). Heron averaged 14.6 points per game last season and was expected to help lead the Red Storm back to prominence this season under new coach Mike Anderson. However, he hurt his ankle on Dec. 10 gainst Brown and missed the next three games, then struggled once Big East play began, a result — it seemed — of his ankle still bothering him.
Heron is currently in a walking boot and, in a statement released by St. John’s, “A timetable for Heron’s return has not been set, but it is likely he will miss the remainder of the 2019-20 season.”
According to Zagsblog.com, Heron was slated to see another doctor on Thursday to make a final determination on his status.