Utah signee Charles Jones Jr. named NJCAA men’s basketball player of the year

Utah has a very nice signing class coming onto campus next season to fill some big shoes, and one of those signees received a great award today. Charles Jones Jr. out of Southern Idaho was named the NJCAA basketball player of the year. Jones had a great year by averaging 15 points per game, 47% from the field and 43% from three point land during his freshman season. This past season, he averaged over 24 points per game in the post season tournament, with 27 points in the title game, while helping to lead Southern Idaho to a 31-6 record.

It will be interesting to see where Jones slides in with the Utes. He appears to be more of a scoring guard, which has some similarities to Justin Bibbins, but it will be interesting to see how he meshes with others, like Sedrick Barefield. The big question will be who will run the offense and make the right play, because Bibbins just had this knack to get the ball to the right guy, or hit the big shot. Barefield may be able to do that too now after a couple of seasons in Coach K’s offense, but I think he plays better off the ball.

Regardless, it’s nice to have talented dudes that can put the ball in the hole, and congrats to Jones for this great award.