Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Get familiar with the term “Jimmer.” By definition, it refers to, hitting a crazy fall-away in the gym or a jump shot from another area code.
Brigham Young University senior guard Jimmer Fredette has taken the college basketball scene by storm this year.
Fredette is only a 6-foot-2-inch, 195-pound man. His lack of height certainly has not affected his shooting stroke. Fredette is the nation’s leading scorer with 27.6 points per game and has been shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc.
The BYU senior has played well enough to put the Cougars into the top-10 in college basketball — they were ranked ninth when the week began.
James Fredette was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., in 1989. Fredette was given his nickname “Jimmer” by his mother when he was 5 years old.
Fredette has been able to hit threes seemingly since he came out of the womb, and his dedication to the game has paid off and shown throughout his four-year career at BYU.
As a freshman, Fredette averaged seven points a game. The next season, he started 32 of 33 games and averaged 16 points a game. He started showing his potential as a shooter his junior year, going off for 49 points in a game against the University of Arizona and setting a BYU record for points scored in a single game.
This season, Fredette has put himself on the map with his ability to score from anywhere on the court. He has gone off for over 40 points in three of his last five games, including a 47-point outburst against the University of Utah in which he went 6-9 from three.
Simply put, the dude can shoot. Yet, Fredette is still projected as a second-rounder for the NBA draft.
At 6-feet-2-inches, Fredette is an undersized shooting guard for NBA play and hasn’t shown he has the play-making capability it takes to play point guard in the league. The NBA draft has turned into a hunt for the “model” NBA player. The search for specific athlete types will make Fredette an afterthought on draft day.
However, Fredette would be a great low-risk-high-reward second-round pick and could shock a lot of people in the NBA. He has shown the ability to work hard, gaining substantial muscle and increasing his scoring average every year during college, and has obvious NBA range. Duke alum and Orlando Magic guard J.J. Redick has turned into a pretty good NBA player with those same undersized qualities.
I think we’re all rooting for Jimmer to do the same.
Bangor Daily News