Twelve months ago, the Kansas basketball team and freshman star Josh Jackson arrived in New York to play at famed Madison Square Garden. As a matter of fact, the Champions Classic game was indeed a classic. Thanks to a Frank Mason buzzer beater by eventual NCAA Player-of-the-Year Frank Mason, the Jayhawks knocked off those guys from the Atlantic Coast Conference 77-75.
The game provided Josh Jackson the opportunity to show a national television audience what he could do and how he might impact Bill Self’s 2016-17 Jayhawk team. On the other hand, the national media attention and the big stage put a lot of pressure on Jackson.