Jackson Bauman’s is all-in on basketball this season. It’s paying off for Knoch so far
JEFFERSON TWP — Kicking back on Fortnite with Knoch boys basketball teammates last summer, something was weighing on Jackson Bauman.
“We’d just get on the game and we’d talk,” said Zane Pacek, the center on the Knights’ hoops team, after practice Thursday evening. “He was just like, ‘Man, I love basketball so much, and I love football so much. I don’t know what to do.’”
Pacek also played with Bauman on Team Wildcat, an AAU basketball team in the Hoop Group Showcase League. While playing the video game, he asked Bauman, a junior guard, which sport he wanted to play in college. Bauman chose basketball and decided to stop playing football.
“If you want to make it far, you’ve got to focus on that sport,” Pacek said. “We were in the gym almost every day over the summer. If he wasn’t with me, he was with Derek (Lang) or Teegan (Finucan) shooting. He was just getting shots up all the time. ... I don’t think he’s missed a single 15-footer this entire season. I don’t expect him to. Coach says, ‘Box out and get rebounds.’ But, I don’t need to get rebounds if Jackson is shooting a 15-footer now. It doesn’t even matter.”
Bauman was a playmaking wide receiver for Knoch’s football team as it narrowly missed out on an Allegheny 6 Conference crown in 2023. He walked away knowing he had a good chance to break the program’s record for receiving touchdowns had he played this fall.
Instead, Bauman spent consistent time with Pacek, Lang and Finucan, also juniors — hang out, go to eat, shoot hoops and work out.
“Just everything friends do,” Lang said.
Lang added the team would’ve supported Bauman through whatever decision he made but “wanted him to focus on basketball because we think he’s a big part of us. To get his body right, it would be better to do one sport.”
“We’re pretty much unbreakable right now, all four of us,” Finucan said. “We’re the closest we’ve ever been because of that.”
Just a few weeks into a season in which they have high aspirations, the Knights are 5-1. Before Knoch’s section-opening win against Valley on Friday night, Bauman was averaging 15 points, five assists and six rebounds per game. He scored 13 and 31 points in consecutive wins over Valley and North Hills, respectively, this weekend.
Bauman attended the football team’s weightlifting sessions throughout the summer as he flip-flopped over the decision. He was feeling good after a spring and summer on the court. Football didn’t feel as fun anymore.
“Seeing success made me really think if I would get hurt in football, what it would do,” Bauman said. “I knew what team we were having this year. I didn’t want to get hurt and jeopardize that. ... It was time for me to move on.”
Alan Bauman, the Knights’ boys hoops coach and Jackson’s father, was hands off with the decision, believing his children need to make their own decisions about their passions.
“I paused a little bit (when he told me),” Alan said. “I kind of removed myself. ... That first Friday night, it really hit me. I was sad. But, again, we’re here to support our kids. That’s what he wants to do.”
Jackson’s older brother, Isiah, played football and basketball at Freeport. Isiah opted not to play the latter during his junior year in order to prepare for a senior football season that was abbreviated by a knee injury suffered in the Yellowjackets’ first game.
“That weighed a lot on Jackson,” Alan said. “(I felt) that if something’s going to happen, I want it to be where he loves it.”
“I was hesitant because I love the game of football,” said Jackson, who’d been playing since first grade. “It was hard for me to walk away. It was my first true love of sports, then basketball just became it. It was hard.”
Jackson focused on building his strength and explosiveness, lifting weights four days per week over the summer.
“I just think he’s more comfortable as a junior, as a leader,” Alan said. “That comes with taking time with Teegan, Derek and Zane. ... I know those guys were excited to have him in the fall to work out. It just showed that he was all in. We’ve got goals that we want to accomplish, and he wanted to make sure those guys understood he was in with them, as well. All the way, through and through.”
Along with what’s in front of him, Jackson has an eye on what his future might hold.
“Kind of all over the spectrum,” Alan said of Jackson’s collegiate recruitment. “Some NAIAs, some D-IIs. He had a good summer. We’re just kind of not even thinking of that right now. With the landscape of college recruiting and the transfer portal, the school that’s interested in you today (is) not going to be interested in you tomorrow.”
