Published: March 22, 2008 11:56 pm      

MSU's Jackson is picking up the scoring

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — That Mountain State point guard Jarvis Jackson has turned into some kind of scorer for the Cougars in the NAIA tournament isn’t a surprise.

After all, he is a player who has been known to score points aplenty in the recent past.

His senior year of high school, Jackson scored 41 points in the South Carolina state championship game.

And he was a scorer in junior college, when he played shooting guard.

Knowing that, the appropriate question might be: Where has this been all season?

The Mountain State point guard, who had 17 Saturday in a 72-51 rout of Azusa Pacific in the NAIA quarterfinals, averaged just 8.2 points per game during the regular season.

In the NAIA tournament he is averaging 19.7 points, and he is averaging 16.2 in the postseason.

This from the guy who is the nation’s fourth-leading assist man?

“Jarvis is a special talent,” MSU leading scorer James Spencer said. “Yes, he’s picking up his scoring. But it’s not strange. He scores a lot in our pickup games all the time. His job during the season was to run the team. And he did that. He’d score most of his points when things broke down or if the shot clock was winding down. It wasn’t that he couldn’t score. He just didn’t need to.”

According to Spencer, Jackson has come up big because he is almost impossible to guard one-on-one.

“I haven’t seen a person who can guard him one-on-one,” Spencer said. “He just blows by people because of his speed. If people are going to hug me or Adron (Marshall), Jarvis is going to get the ball to the basket or feed the post players. It would be a mistake for teams to think Jarvis can’t score, though.”

Ironically, Jackson calls himself “the fourth option on this team.”

He’s probably right about that, being behind Spencer, Marshall and Jason McGriff, at least earlier this year.

Lately, though, he has been option No. 1.

Like his three-pointer after he missed a free throw early in the second half against Azusa Pacific. It was a shot that got the Cougars rolling.

Early in the year, he likely would have reset the offense.

Not now. When he is feeling it, he knows it.

“I was surprised how open I was,” he said of the shot. “But I’ve been shooting the ball well all tournament. I thought it was a shot I could knock down.”

Ironically, MSU coach Bob Bolen was saying “No!” when Jackson shot. As it swished through, that quickly changed to “Yes!”

“The thing is, he only took eight shots,” Bolen said. “Jarvis scored 17 points on just eight shots. That’s efficient. He’s done a great job of that all year. He keeps our offense running efficiently. He’s done an outstanding job whether it’s running the offense or scoring.”

If Jackson continues to play the way he has in the postseason, Mountain State is going to be a tough out in the NAIA’s Fab Four.

The Cougars play top-seeded and unbeaten Georgetown (Ky.) at 7:30 p.m. (CBSCS) Monday at the historic Municipal Auditorium.