“This Kid Loves Playing Ball”
December 01, 2021 | Women's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Mississippi State’s JerKaila Jordan can do a little bit of everything for the Bulldogs.
STARKVILLE – Sometimes, when Mississippi State interim head coach Doug Novak watches film, he'll turn the sound off. Every now and then in the silence, JerKaila Jordan catches Novak's eye. The sophomore guard is often on the floor for the Bulldogs, but it's perhaps the moments she isn't playing when the person Jordan is really stands out. It screams out in fact, even when the volume is down.
"If she's not in, she's celebrating [teammates'] success like no other," Novak said of Jordan. "She's doing little dances and things I don't see in practice, but you can see on the film. It's like, this kid loves playing ball. This kid loves being on a team. That's pretty special."
Special might be the best label to put on Jordan. It's becoming more evident by the game as the transfer fills up the stat sheet for MSU.
It was apparent from the time Jordan decided to head to Starkville earlier this year that she was a player with potential. At Tulane last year, she was the American Athletic Conference's Freshman of the Year and a member of the All-AAC First Team. Seven times she won the league's Freshman of the Week Award, once earning an AAC Player of the Week accolade. Now, Bulldog fans are getting to understand why and how Jordan's star was shining so brightly with the Green Wave.
Headed into State's Wednesday night matchup against McNeese State, Jordan is second on the team in scoring (17.5 points per game). And despite being a guard, she's second on the team in rebounding (6.7 a game) and third on the team in total blocks (nine). She has the team's best field goal percentage among those who have taken more than 20 shots. She's the team's top three-point threat. She's second in total steals.
It seems there is literally nothing Jordan can't do. It's what led Novak to proclaim earlier this year that Jordan would be one of his very first picks if he's ever playing a pick-up game at the park.
"She'll do whatever you need," Novak said.
It's no accident. It's precisely the kind of player Jordan wants to be.
"I feel like it's really important for me to just know my role," Jordan said. "I try to do my best at rebounding. I try to do my best to get my teammates open. Whatever they need me to do is really what I put my main focus on. I'll do whatever just to make sure we come out with the win."
You might sense it in Jordan's words, but with her, you won't find any selfishness. It's all about victories. Like the old sports cliché goes, for Jordan, it's all about the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back.
"There's no ego," Novak said of Jordan. "She just looks to fill needs. That's pretty rare. In today's game, everyone seems to be saying, 'What can you do for me?' Am I getting enough touches? I need to go here because I play this position.' With Jerkaila, she's never talking about that. She just wants to play. If you say, 'Jerkaila, I need you to be the center.' She'd say, 'Fine. Does that mean I get to stay on the court longer?' That's all she cares about. She loves it."
With the way Jordan goes about her business, you might assume she's been hooping it up all her life. Well, you'd be wrong. Basketball was actually Jordan's second love. Outside of playing with her brothers, Jordan didn't really dive fully into basketball until high school.
"I actually started off playing soccer," Jordan said. "I was really more into soccer. I kind of stayed away from basketball. But as I grew up, there wasn't much soccer for me anymore [in my hometown of] New Orleans, so I had no choice but to play basketball."
It was a decision that, it seems safe to say, worked out. By the time Jordan was finishing up at John Curtis High School, she was a five-star recruit. How did she get to such a point? Well because she fell in love with the game of course – pretty much every aspect of it. She had to as she shifted from position to position.
When Jordan started playing as a freshman, she was taller than most everyone else.
"So I had to play the post," Jordan recounts with a smile.
A couple of years later, Jordan finally got to settle in as a point guard. It's the position she played at Tulane last year before coming to MSU where she often plays the three.
Playing all over the court has enabled Jordan to develop a skill set where opponents can't very easily shut her down. She's like a Swiss Army Knife. There's seemingly always a different tool she can pull out.
"Knowing that I can shoot the three well, or I can drive you, or I can maybe post you up – it's like [opponents] might not know what's coming," Jordan said.
They sure haven't so far. Jordan has at least six rebounds in five of State's six games. She's also scored 15 or more points in five of the six contests. The one game she didn't reach double figures in scoring, she just missed as she tallied nine.
She's had multiple blocks in four of six games and multiple steals in five of six. Almost every single time out, Jordan is everywhere, doing seemingly everything. All the while, she's growing. She's developing. That's perhaps the most exciting thing of all.
"Her ability to pay attention and listen [is one of her biggest strengths]," Novak said. "She may not get it right the first time, but she has all the information to get it right the second time. That speeds up her learning curve."
As good as Jordan is, no player is perfect. What can she work on to reach an even higher level?
"She probably takes on a little too much internally if things aren't going right," Novak said. "She has to make sure one bad play doesn't lead to another bad play. That is a normal thing for a younger player… But when she feels like she's made a mistake, the next day when some of the emotions have calmed down a little bit, she processes that information very well and again, she's just always moving forward. She's learning how to play through mistakes. That comes with maturity. I think she's doing a tremendous job."
She sure is, and she's a huge reason the Bulldogs are off to a 5-1 start. When you love the game like Jordan and have her skill set, you're almost always going to stand out. Even in a sport where there are certainly some taller than her 5-foot-9 frame, very few can come up as big and in as many ways as Jordan.
"She just does her job," Novak said. "In terms of relying on her, I would say I don't know if we rely on her or if she's just reliable. That's a talent. Showing up to work every day is a talent and I can say this, she's very talented."
