247Sports composite rankings<\/a> \u2014 committed in the fall of 2024 over finalists North Carolina, Arizona, Baylor and West Virginia.<\/p>\nMcEntire said Jackson\u2019s character \u2014 \u201cshe\u2019s got a light to her and how she treats people\u201d \u2014 made it an even better recruiting feat.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the total package,\u201d McEntire said. \u201cShe works her butt off. She\u2019s an elite player, an elite person and just someone that we truly enjoy having in the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Bought into learning\u2019<\/p>\n
USC freshman star Jazzy Davidson, the nation\u2019s No. 2 high school recruit last year, didn\u2019t look flustered often against Illinois on Feb. 8 at the State Farm Center. But late in the fourth quarter, Jackson was glued to Davidson, doing her best to pester her just across the half-court line.<\/p>\n
Davidson, who is 7 inches taller than Jackson, saw a mismatch, directed her teammates out of the way and drove up the right side of the lane to the basket. But Jackson stuck to her the whole way, swiping the ball away down low as Davidson attempted a layup.<\/p>\n
Jackson followed her steal with a full-court layup to cut USC\u2019s lead to six points. The Trojans led by as many as 19 in the fourth quarter, thanks in large part to Davidson\u2019s 27 points against multiple Illinois defenders. But plays like that from Jackson helped the Illini at least make it interesting down the stretch for what Illinois announced as a sellout crowd.\n<\/p>\n
Jackson finished the 70-62 loss with 17 points, eight assists, eight steals and just one turnover, one of her best all-around games of the season. She was shocked to see the steals total after the game but attributed it to wanting to do anything to help the Illini win.\n<\/p>\n
Jackson described herself as a defender as \u201csomebody that makes you uncomfortable, somebody that\u2019s going to make you work for everything you do and someone who has a constant motor.\u201d<\/p>\n
McEntire said there was a moment in the fall, after they started to play live in practices more often, that defense clicked for Jackson, an area of her game that translated to college more easily than others. McEntire called Jackson \u201cobnoxious for the offensive player at times on that ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne hundred percent that comes from me being from Chicago,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThe toughness comes from that. Chicago is a lot of gritty guards, just get in your face. We\u2019re going to try to get the ball from you. We\u2019re going to make everything hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illinois coaches also have been pleased with the way Jackson takes care of the ball.<\/p>\n
Entering this past week, she was one of only two freshmen in the top 25 in Division I in assist-to-turnover ratio. She had 127 assists to 56 turnovers \u2014 a 2.27 ratio \u2014 to rank No. 22 through Sunday\u2019s games.\u00a0 Vanderbilt freshman Aubrey Galvan was the other, ranked No. 20.\n<\/p>\n
McEntire spent two years at Texas before joining Green\u2019s staff in 2022 and coached Rori Harmon, now a senior for the Longhorns, who through Sunday was second in the nation with a 3.89 assist-to-turnover ratio. McEntire let Jackson know that her top-25 ranking is even higher than Harmon\u2019s was during a freshman season in which Harmon received All-America honorable mention.\n<\/p>\n
Jackson said she\u2019s happy with how her feel for the game has translated.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the passes I made in high school maybe I thought wouldn\u2019t be able to get made in college, just because of the length and how good the players were,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cBut I\u2019m actually still able to facilitate at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n
McEntire said they talk weekly, if not every other day, about the stat, and the coach so drilled it into Jackson\u2019s mindset that the first time she committed more than one or two turnovers in a game, she was really bothered by it. McEntire thinks Jackson has a \u201cdeep care\u201d for not turning it over.<\/p>\n
Jackson also continues to hone her decision making and reads and improve in the art of making a good pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you keep that thing on a string and get it right to the pocket, so whenever it hits a shooter\u2019s hands, it\u2019s placed and going up? Because they\u2019ve got to make it for it to be an assist, right?\u201d McEntire said. \u201cIt\u2019s positioning your teammates to actually get the score.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer handle is really good, that helps her. Her speed is really good, that helps her. She has learned to pass with both hands, that helps her. Learning when to pass underneath and over the defense. She\u2019s learning so many things in so many different areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s just been fun to watch her grow. And now when we\u2019re watching film, we\u2019re like, \u2018All right, what did we have right here?\u2019 \u2018Yeah, I see that.\u2019 \u2026 She has bought into learning as fast as she can and understands that there\u2019s more to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not everything came as quickly for Jackson.<\/p>\n
When she arrived at Illinois, there was a lot to absorb in becoming the starting point guard for a Big Ten team. She had to learn new details and terminology. She was consumed with facilitating the Illini offense, and that didn\u2019t always translate into her scoring a lot.<\/p>\n
McEntire said Jackson is learning to make the right reads, not just in where to pass the ball but in when she should drive or shoot or how she needs to come off a ball screen as a smaller guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cDestiny can really score the ball,\u201d McEntire said. \u201cShe has a lot going on in her mind, and she\u2019s starting to take more shots and seeing lanes and gaps. She\u2019s able to run the team and still find those, and she\u2019s getting better at that. And that\u2019s an area that will continue to improve. Her shot\u2019s gotten better. We\u2019ve just got to continue to put it into games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson has scored in double digits in six of the last seven games after doing so in just four games previously. She and her coaches have talked about being more aggressive and attacking the basket more. Her 17-point performance against USC was her second-highest this season behind the 18 she scored against Murray State in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like that has really grown,\u201d she said. \u201cToward the beginning of the season, I was kind of going in more relaxed, just trying to get my shot off, rather than now, I\u2019m attacking. I\u2019m going to either get fouled or I\u2019m going to finish the layup.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Jackson is finishing inside against players who tower over her is nothing new. She has figured out how to use her physical gifts to her advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to give up a lot of size, you have to be elite in different things,\u201d Green told reporters at a recent practice. \u201cShe\u2019s elite in her athleticism laterally to move and keep her chest over the ball, so now she can keep players further out so they\u2019re not taking advantage of her size.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she gets them low, they\u2019re going to shoot over her. She\u2019s elite in her hands, so she can create a lot of steals and deflections. And then she knows how to finish around bigger people because that\u2019s just what she\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s increased scoring has helped supplement an offense led by sophomore forward Berry Wallace and freshman forward Cearah Parchment, who are averaging 18.9 and 13.3 points, respectively.\n<\/p>\n
Illinois is one of the youngest teams in the nation, so it has needed players to step up beyond their years. Jackson has been a big part of helping the team find its footing, and she\u2019s hopeful for what the Illini can do if they keep growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky\u2019s the limit,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cIf we stay together, we keep learning with each other, growing with each other, we can do really special things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAMPAIGN \u2014 Illinois coaches call it the \u201cgrowth mindset,\u201d the key quality that has allowed Destiny Jackson to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":605836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[260553,260552,960,260550,5386,1818,260549,137637,260551],"class_list":{"0":"post-605835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-big-ten-womens-basketball","9":"tag-calamity-mcentire","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-destiny-jackson","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-illinois-womens-basketball","15":"tag-jazzy-davidson","16":"tag-shauna-green"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Destiny](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CTC-L-MS-BASKETBALL-DESTINY-JACKSON10_228169146.jpg\")
Destiny Jackson, a senior at Young and winner of Illinois Ms. Basketball, on April 28, 2025. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n