Inglewood’s Jason Crowe Jr caught the eyes of college coaches far sooner than your typical No. 3 player (according to 247 Sports) in the country. While his dad, Jason Crowe Sr, ran practices at Verbum Dei High School in South Central L.A., a young J2 was glued to the side hoops, expanding on the prolific layup package that’s been on display for the past few years.
“Every so often, the college coach would come and say, These guys right here, we don’t want none of them. But I’m going to come back and get your son. I’ve been watching him the whole time, Coach. Like, I ain’t been watching these guys that you told me to watch. Because he would be mastering the game,” Crowe Sr says. “He was there practicing all these types of layups and that was his opportunity to engage himself with the game right there. And he just kept growing.”
When he wasn’t spinning and twisting the ball off the glass in the gym, Jason was doing it on the hoop in his sun-soaked backyard. The bag that’s led to over 3,000 career points and counting has been years in the making. As a freshman, he led Lynwood to a CIF State Championship with 36.4 points per game. At 16, he dropped a 45-piece in the Drew League. And this past offseason, he led the Nike EYBL in scoring with 26.5 ppg.
But the 6-3 No. 1 point guard in the Class of 2026, who’s committed to Mizzou, says he truly realized the height of his powers as a freshman when he dropped 50 during a tournament at MiraCosta College. “That’s when I knew my team needed me to be not the freshman, I needed to be the senior as a freshman. I needed to be that player where it’s like, OK, we put this on you, now try to win the game for us,” J2 says. “I feel like that’s when I became the big-time player I am today.”
Jared ebanks 