Before Jared Butler was a consensus first-team All-American, NCAA champion and future NBA draft pick, he was a talented yet inconsistent freshman struggling to make the transition from high school to college basketball.
His stats, while respectable for a first-year player, did not indicate that he would develop into one of college basketball’s brightest stars. Much of Butler’s first season at Baylor was filled with single-digit scoring nights and inefficient shooting performances.
Then, after shooting just 1-of-6 from the field against Oklahoma State, Butler played his best game yet in a close loss to Kansas. He scored a career-high 31 points on 10-of-21 shooting and outshined the Jayhawks’ duo of future NBA guards Quentin Grimes and Ochai Agbaji, who scored 15 combined points.
This was the game that jump-started Butler’s legendary college career. He was the leading scorer on Baylor’s – national championship squad and became one of the many prolific guards, along with the likes of Davion Mitchell, MaCio Teague, Adam Flager and Keyonte George, that the program has produced in recent years.
All of these success stories, however, aren’t what led the Baylor guards to call themselves “Guard U,” according to Teague, who was also on this title-winning team. The reasoning behind this nickname, he explains, has to do with the gatherings that Baylor assistant coach and head of guard development John Jakus led.
These get-togethers, which Jakus had with all of Baylor’s guards, allowed the coach to connect with players on a personal level.
The meetings included a brief film study – as all positional meetings do – but more importantly, a group meal as well as an open conversation that allowed Jakus to ask questions and find out more about what was going on in his players’ lives off the court.
His commitment to fostering quality connections with his players isn’t a front; Jakus genuinely cares about the livelihood of every athlete that he leads, and this extends to after he’s done coaching them.
“Many of his players still talk to him to the day. I’m talking players that [were at Baylor] when Coach Jakus was a graduate assistant,” Teague said. “That has to tell you something about the type of person he is if he’s still in contact with all of these people because Coach Jakus believes in relationships over everything.”
Jakus’ relationships over everything attitude carries over into his approach to coaching.
As the conductor of Baylor’s offense, Jakus ran a system that instilled confidence in his players and established an unwavering belief in themselves to overcome adversity, as was the case for Butler during his freshman season. Instead of discouraging Butler, Jakus uplifted him, which led to his career-altering performance against the Jayhawks.
Baylor’s electric offense has ranked in the top eight in KemPom’s adjusted efficiency metric in each of the last four seasons.
“When guys are missing shots, he’s telling guys, ‘That’s alright. Keep shooting.’ He runs a free-flowing offense … that allows people to maximize their offensive capabilities within the system,” Teague said.
The offense peaked the year the Bears won a national championship. To run this system to its fullest potential, Jakus and head coach Scott Drew turned to transfers.
Davion Mitchell, Adam Flagler and Teague were all at different schools before their time at Baylor. Mitchell was a former top-75 recruit who struggled to find his footing on an Auburn team with a stacked backcourt. Flagler and Teague were little-known recruits out of high school who initially played at Presbyterian and UNC Asheville, respectively.
What these players lacked in hype and attention, they made up for in character – a trait Jakus says he values, especially on the recruiting trail.
“We’re going to use our analytical models and NBA background checks that we do to pick the highest-character kid, and the character means a lot more than the ranking,” Jakus said to reporters during his introductory press conference at FAU about his approach to recruiting. “You can find talent in different places.”
As several players have departed from FAU this offseason by way of the transfer portal, Jakus will have to further his success in identifying and bringing in transfers for the Owls to field a competitive team next year.
Jakus plans on doing this by leaning on the judgment of the returnees at FAU. He fully trusts his players – even the ones who have yet to play a game for him.
“When we bring a recruit on campus, this group gets to decide if they stay or not – not me. We will not hide our recruiting; they will be involved with it. And if we’re lucky enough to keep a core group here together, they’re going to be able to pick their teammates,” Jakus said. “So I’m not going to lie to them, and they’re going to be a part of the process. They’ve earned the right to decide.”
The faith that Jakus has in his players throughout every aspect of coaching is the main reason why he’s had so much success in his young career, and it’s why the long-term outlook of FAU basketball appears to be bright for years to come.
“He’s going to love them unconditionally … He’s going to give them his 100% no matter what. He doesn’t want to bounce around. He wants to stay at a place and build it up. He’s not trying to look for the next best job,” said Obim Okeke, who used to play at Baylor and was a graduate assistant with the Bears while Jakus was an assistant. “He wants to stay there and help FAU grow to contend with national contenders as long as he’s there, hopefully 20, 30-plus years. He’s in it for the long haul.”