- Joined
- Oct 24, 2025
- Messages
- 418
- Reaction Score
- 2,610
Some say Jacki Gemelos was the best high school player they've ever seen.
As a 15-year-old sophomore in 2004, she was the youngest commitment UConn ever had.
As a junior, she decommitted from UConn and committed to USC, angering Geno who thus missed out on a super 2006 recruiting class of uber-center Tina Charles and uber-guard Jacki Gemelos.
As a senior at St. Mary's HS in Stockton, CA, she averaged 39.2 points, 8.9 assists, 6.5 rebounds and 2.7 steals per game.
In the last game of her senior year, Jacki was pushed and tore her ACL.
She tore it four more times over the next five years. Five ACL surgeries in six years! A tragedy. Which ruined her aggressive and acrobatic athletic skills—albeit not her 40% 3pt shot—and hence her collegiate and professional basketball careers, which ended with heroic tenacity and recoveries but mediocrity.
Jacki this month is back in her hometown of Stockton, still teaching her undying love of basketball at a camp for kids.
You can read about Jacki's star-crossed journey (sorry, maybe behind paywalls) HERE, HERE and HERE.
You can also get a glimpse of her skills in this video from her high school senior year, playing against 6-4 Vicki Baugh (22) and another elite player in 6-3 Jessika Bradley (23). She gets better as the video goes on. Note how aggressively she probes and re-probes the defense, ultimately exploding through the trees to lay up ambidextrous short shots and layups with hang-time body control. Sort of like a Juju Watkins with better touch.
As a 15-year-old sophomore in 2004, she was the youngest commitment UConn ever had.
As a junior, she decommitted from UConn and committed to USC, angering Geno who thus missed out on a super 2006 recruiting class of uber-center Tina Charles and uber-guard Jacki Gemelos.
As a senior at St. Mary's HS in Stockton, CA, she averaged 39.2 points, 8.9 assists, 6.5 rebounds and 2.7 steals per game.
In the last game of her senior year, Jacki was pushed and tore her ACL.
She tore it four more times over the next five years. Five ACL surgeries in six years! A tragedy. Which ruined her aggressive and acrobatic athletic skills—albeit not her 40% 3pt shot—and hence her collegiate and professional basketball careers, which ended with heroic tenacity and recoveries but mediocrity.
Jacki this month is back in her hometown of Stockton, still teaching her undying love of basketball at a camp for kids.
You can read about Jacki's star-crossed journey (sorry, maybe behind paywalls) HERE, HERE and HERE.
You can also get a glimpse of her skills in this video from her high school senior year, playing against 6-4 Vicki Baugh (22) and another elite player in 6-3 Jessika Bradley (23). She gets better as the video goes on. Note how aggressively she probes and re-probes the defense, ultimately exploding through the trees to lay up ambidextrous short shots and layups with hang-time body control. Sort of like a Juju Watkins with better touch.