Grambling coach hoping ‘second home’ delivers first NCAA Tournament win

While that might have great motivation for his team, Jackson said it wasn’t the only reason he scheduled a game with Dayton last December.

He also had a hard time finding teams willing to take on the Tigers after they won the Southwest Athletic Conference a season ago.

“After going 24-9, you try to find people to play, and it’s not quite easy,” Jackson said Tuesday. “I was talking to a coach over here at Dayton, we were talking back and forth. He said, ‘You know what? Let’s go play,’ because my goal was to be here anyways.

“I knew this is where the First Four is held. I know Dayton is a tough opponent. We’ll see somebody probably like Dayton at some point in time. We’ve got to prepare and get ourselves ready. It was really more of a scheduling and understanding the goal at the end of the year.”

Although the Flyers romped his Tigers 76-46 on Dec. 2, the rest of the season has pretty much gone as planned.

Despite having to plug in some young players, Jackson led the Tigers back to the top of the SWAC standings and was named the league’s coach of the year for the second consecutive season.

Then they did something they failed to do in 2023: Win the conference tournament.

Jackson got emotional for a moment when talking about getting over that hump and earning the Tigers’ first NCAA Tournament bid.

That journey for the team began last year, but for Jackson it started not far away at Central State, where he was a three-year letterwinner and all-conference player in 2002.

He then coached the Marauders for seven seasons, going 68-42 in four years as head coach.

“Dayton is my second home,” he said. “I met my wife here. I had my kids here. I spent 15 years here, from 1999 to 2014, I spent 15 years here. Grew up as a man.I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but grew up as a man here in Dayton. Dayton is a definitely a second home.”

When the Tigers take on Montana State at 6:40 on Wednesday night, he expects to see plenty of members of his Central State family in the crowd.

“I expect a lot of people from Central to show up today, just have some pride because this is what this is about,” he said. “We always support our own.”