“Thank God!”
Now 20 years later, the Flyer Faithful have the same reaction when the big man rises off the bench and enters a game to play his still limited — but always productive — minutes.
Six games into this season, Jack has become a crowd favorite for several reasons: For the instant energy he brings to his teammates on the court to his own productiveness around the rim — he’s made 11 of his 12 field goal attempts this season — to the way he interacts with fans off the floor.
A sophomore transfer from the University of Buffalo who backs up 6-foot-10 DaRon Holmes II – an All-10 first team pick last year who’s on the watch lists for several national player awards this season — Jack is averaging just 8.8 minutes a game.
Friday night he played nearly 13 — his most of the season — in the Flyers 77-69 victory over Youngstown State at UD Arena.
Afterward, following a quick perusal of the box score, Dayton coach Anthony Grant noted how Jack’s plus/minus differential was 13, tied for team best with point guard Javon Bennett.
That stat measures a player’s impact in the game. It represents how his team did when he was on the court. In Jack’s case, UD outscored YSU by 13 when he was playing.
Anna Jack — whose maiden name was Mosdell — was a Division I basketball player at Brigham Young, a two-time NCAA discus champion, and now is in the BYU Hall of Fame — said she and her husband Al have stressed one thing with Isaac this season:
“Quality over quantity.”
Friday night Jack was again perfect from the field — making his only field goal on a two-handed dunk — and finished with six points to go with three blocked shots and three rebounds.
“Something I always say is ‘be great at what you’re good at,’” said Grant. “And he’s doing a great job of understanding his role and what he needs to provide for our team.”
It’s a luxury to have a quality big man coming off the bench and that’s one reason Jack’s gotten the Faithful’s embrace.
You see it in the way the appreciative crowd applauds him every time he returns to the bench.
It was evident in a hallway outside the Arena’s media room after Jack left the postgame press session and promptly was surrounded by a half-dozen kids. Several asked for his autograph. One gushed, “I liked your dunk!” A young girl just stood quietly against the walk and looked up…up…up at him.
His parents and his Auntie Glynis noticed it when they came from their home in Port Alberni on Victoria Island in British Columbia to the Charleston Classic last week in South Carolina.
“We could not believe what was going on in Charleston,” Anna said Friday night by phone from Canada. “When we got to the Atlanta airport and were looking around, everybody was wearing Dayton Flyers’ gear and we’re like, ‘What’s all this?’
“Then, when they found out that Isaac was our kid, they were like ‘Oh my God! Joe come over here. This is Isaac Jack’s parents.’
“Everybody was so nice at the game. They were all high fiving. They were like, ‘Welcome to the Flyer Family!’”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Getting better every day
Jack calls his parents after every game and Friday night was no exception.
It made you wonder how his mom — who watches the games thanks to ESPN streaming and sometimes listens to the radio broadcasts — takes in the games:
As a mom? As a fellow D-1 athlete? Or, as a coach, which she’s been quite successfully (primarily track and field) for nearly three decades?
The question made her pause, then chuckle:
“I guess a combination of all three, but there is a priority. We always want Isaac to do well and when the team wins too, that’s doubly great. It’s fantastic.”
Then she cleared her throat: “But at the same time…
“Like today, he was 4 for 6 (from the free throw line) and when we talked afterward, his dad spoke to him first and said, ‘Man, your mom’s gunnin’ for you!’”
She started to laugh: “I tell him I’m going to punch him for every free throw he misses. And he said, ‘But I made the next two!’”
Jack might be the tallest player on the team, but his experience stacks up short compared to the rest of his teammates. He just started playing basketball about four years ago and is still learning the game.
That’s one of the reasons he said he transferred from Buffalo, where last season, as a freshman, he played in 31 games, started 20 and averaged 5.6 points and 4.3 rebounds a contest.
“I was looking for the opportunity to keep getting better,” he said. “And I think I can with the help of Coach A.G. and especially Deuce (DaRon Holmes II), playing against him every day. It’s always me against him in practice. There’s no other option really. We compete against each other every day and get each other better.
“Every day in practice, films, weights I’m constantly learning. And if I keep that mindset, it will help me grow a lot as an athlete.”
His minutes have increased in these early weeks of the season. The opening game against SIUE, he played seven minutes and then he played just two at Northwestern.
He’s averaged 11 minutes a game in the last four.
His accuracy has never wavered though.
Against SIUE he was 3 for 3 from the field for six points in seven minutes. In the Charleston Classic championship game against Houston, he was 4 for 4 from the field for eight points in eight minutes.
Grant thinks Jack and Holmes going against each other in practice pays dividends:
“In the perfect world, iron sharpens iron…You make each other better.”
‘Maniac’
Jack’s nickname among his teammates is Maniac.
“Koby Brea started it, and Deuce is the one who’s kept it alive,” he said. “It started the first day here. We went to Raising Cane’s, and I got the Caniac Combo. Now it’s just become an inside joke with the team. They like it because of the energy I bring. And I figure if the shoe fits, might as well go with it.”
Brea explained his thinking: “This man, from the day I met him, he’s had the same energy. He keeps that every single day and when he gets in the game, it’s very contagious.
“There’s times we might start off slow, like we did today, and he’ll come in and hype everybody up and give us the little bit of energy we need.”
The 4-2 Flyers put five players in double figures Friday. Holmes had 18 points; Brea and Kobe Elvis both had 15; Bennett had 10 and Nate Santos had a double-double, 10 points and 13 rebounds.
Jack had four double-figure scoring games last season for Buffalo and one double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds) against SUNY Canton.
Until four years ago, his sports had been soccer, snowboarding and especially hockey.
That brought another question:
So did you have another nickname with those teams or when you were growing up?
He nodded: “Yeah, a lot of them.”
Like what?
He grew quiet, thought a second, then smiled and shook his head: ‘Naah, I’m not gonna say…maybe next time.”
Meanwhile, mom had little hesitation:
“Oh he’s gonna kill me, but growing up his brother called him Puff. It was from some cartoon show. And in hockey…his name was Bambi.”
She said he actually was good on skates, especially for being such a big kid.
“He stopped playing hockey at the end of grade 10,” she said. “He was probably 6-4 or 6-5. He was starting to like basketball and that next season for hockey, he would have needed custom-made skates because they only come so big.”
He wears a size 16 shoe.
“We were like, ‘We’re not buying you custom skates,’ “she said, then laughed. “With what they cost, we might as well buy him a car. So we were like ‘Dude, you should take basketball more seriously.’”
And he did.
And that’s how Bambi became the Maniac and the Dayton Flyers got a crowd favorite:
Thank God!
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