On May 1st the NBA’s Board of Governors voted to postpone the Draft Lottery and Draft Combine in Chicago due to an abundance of caution regarding the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to all of the seniors who have wrapped up their college careers, the early-entry deadline for underclassmen was August 3rd and the NBA deadline is approaching on August 17th. The lottery has been postponed until August 20th and the draft itself is scheduled to take place virtually on October 16th. We will spend the upcoming months interviewing as many members of the 2020 draft class as possible. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our coverage by chatting with St. Mary’s prospect Jordan Ford about leading the nation in minutes and what it would mean to him to get drafted.
You were a chess prodigy as a child and were ranked 7th in the nation in your age bracket before quitting competitive play at age 8 to focus on basketball: do you ever miss it, and do your chess skills ever help you on the basketball court? My dad taught me the game of chess at age 4 and I won a couple of state titles. I do miss it sometimes: it taught me how to work hard at a young age.
You were born/raised in California: what made you choose St. Mary’s? When I went there on my visit I liked the coaching staff/players. Coach Randy Bennett had a winning culture that I wanted to be a part of, and they have a great history of PGs who end up in the NBA like Patty Mills/Matthew Dellavedova.
What makes Bennett such a good coach, and what was the most important thing that you ever learned from him? He gets the most out of his players by knowing when to be tough on us and when not to. Once I hit my junior year it just started clicking and I realized the importance of bringing it every day even if you are not feeling 100%.
As a junior you were 2nd in the WCC with 21.1 PPG: what is the secret to being a great scorer? Trying to have a scoring mentality and not taking any nights off that will bring your average down. The most important thing is to win the game and I knew that scoring some PTS could help us win.
Take me through the 2019 postseason:
In the WCC title game you scored a game-high 17 PTS in an upset of a top-ranked Gonzaga team that had won 21 games in a row: how do you explain the rivalry to people who have never seen it in person, and where does that win rank among the highlights of your career? That was probably the best win of my career since Gonzaga was ranked #1 in the nation at the time. It is a great rivalry: we do not hate each other but rather respect each other. We both know that we will have to bring our “A” game if we want to win and both schools have great coaches.
In the NCAA tourney you scored 13 PTS in a 4-PT loss to Villanova: how close did you come to upsetting the defending national champs? We came really close: I think that if I had played better/scored more then we might have won it. It was close throughout the game but they had a really good team as well and the ball just did not bounce our way.
Your 3PM/RPG/SPG/PPG improved during each of the past 4 years: how were you able to keep getting better every single year? Just getting the reps I needed to learn the game: it was all very new to me during my freshman year but by my senior year I was well-prepared. You need to work on your game and develop your skill set.
Take me through the 2020 WCC tourney:
You scored a career-high 42 PTS/17-30 FG/0 TO in a 7-PT 2-OT win over Pepperdine in the quarterfinals (Colbey Ross had 43 PTS): was it just 1 of those situations where every shot you put up seemed to go in because you were “in the zone”? My main goal was to go out and be aggressive and put pressure on their defense, so once the ball went in a few times I had more freedom to try to take over the game.
You scored a team-high 18 PTS in the semifinals including a 17-foot jumper with 1.4 seconds left to clinch a 1-PT win over BYU: how was the play drawn up, and did you think the shot was going in? I was trying to get downhill on my guy and then get to the rack, and if they collapsed then the plan was to kick it out. I went up for a floater in a similar situation in an earlier game at BYU so I knew what they were expecting. I assumed there would be an opportunity to pull-up so I did and then made the shot.
You scored 27 PTS in a loss to Gonzaga in the title game and then learned a few days later that the NCAA tourney was canceled due to the coronavirus: what was your reaction when you 1st heard the news, and how pissed were you to miss breaking Matthew Dellavedova’s record as the all-time leading scorer in school history by 5 PTS? I was out eating with some teammates when we saw on TV that some other conference tourneys were getting canceled, and then after Rudy Gobert tested positive we had a feeling that something bad might happen. We were all really bummed out because we thought that we could make some noise in the NCAA tourney this year and did not want our season to end like that. I was much more excited to play in the NCAA tourney than to break Delly’s record, even though he is a legend here.
You led the nation in minutes played including a school-record 58 minutes in an 8-PT 4-OT loss at Pacific last January: how exhausted were you by the end of the season, and how much of an advantage is your stamina on the court? I noticed during my junior year that I was exhausted but I did some more training/visualization as a senior that helped me avoid getting fatigued or feeling worn down mentally.
What is it like to be an African-American man/basketball player in 2020? There is a lot of racial injustice going on right now and it has been highlighted this year. We have to use our voice/platform because athletes can be leaders in the community.
What would it mean to you to get drafted, and what is the plan if you do not get drafted? It has been a lifelong dream of mine since watching Kobe Bryant play as a kid. It would be really cool/exciting to make it and then try to give it 100% but if I do not get drafted it is not the end of the world. I will just keep developing my game and try to work my way up to the NBA some other way.