Xavier McDaniel Jr. and Jordan Jackson have a lot in common. They both play for UTRGV as guards, they started playing ball at a young age, they want to make a name for themselves and they are the sons of two professional basketball players.
McDaniel Jr.’s father is Xavier “X-Man” McDaniel, an NBA All-Star who played with many teams, including the Seattle Supersonics, Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns, from 1985 to 1998 and is enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Jackson is the son of Sheryl Swoopes, a four-time WNBA champion, six-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic gold medalist and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. She played from 1997 to 2011 and is now an assistant coach at Texas Tech University.
McDaniel Jr. is a sophomore who has played in 55 games throughout his UTRGV career and is scoring an average of 10.6 points per game in this season, so far. He said the biggest challenge for him this season is playing consistently.
“There are sometimes where I’ll get a double-double or something and then there’s some days I’ll get one rebound, six points, so I have to find a good middle ground for myself and be able to do that on a nightly basis,” McDaniel Jr. said.
Jackson is a junior scoring an average of 8.0 points per game in five games played. He has been out of action with a groin injury since last semester. This is his first season playing for the Vaqueros and he said his main reason for coming to the school was the coaching staff.
Gabriel Galvan/The Rider
“Coach [Lew] Hill and the coaching staff here is so genuine,” Jackson said. “Coming from Texas Tech to junior college to here, I just feel like this is a very family oriented place and looking at the past history of the basketball program here, I wanted to come somewhere where I could be the start of something new and be able to leave my own legacy somewhere and be able to contribute to a team that can start something new, something fresh.”
Their passion for basketball did not start at UTRGV. McDaniel Jr. and Jackson said they began playing basketball early in their lives.
“I started playing basketball at a very young age, when I was probably about 3 or 4,” Jackson said. “I was in the living room with the little Nerf hoops and the Little Tikes basketball goals and all that. Ever since then, I just loved the game and playing it.”
McDaniel Jr. also started playing around age 3 and said his father played a big part in why he is pursuing basketball today.
“It was probably just all those days with my dad when I was younger,” he said. “We would go to the gym. We had the little plastic goal, the little 6-foot goal that I used to play on in the house.”
With McDaniel’s experience in the NBA, and Swoopes’ experience in the WNBA, McDaniel Jr. and Jackson have trained with their parents, received advice and pointers from them on how to improve while developing their skills and working on their own legacies.
The Rider asked McDaniel Jr. and Jackson what they would like to be remembered as.
McDaniel Jr.: “Someone who just gave it all on the court. Someone who just, every time he stepped on the court, gave it his all. You can never say that he didn’t play hard that game.”
Jackson: “As an honest person. That he was honest to himself, just as a basketball player, just that he put his heart into the game, no matter what. He faced adversity, he found a program that fit him well, he found a head coach that believes in him, assistant coaches that believe in him, that put him in a position to succeed and he brought forth his maximum effort and he put everything he had into the game of basketball.”
UTRGV men’s basketball will travel to Washington to take on Seattle University at 9 p.m. Thursday and to Orem, Utah, to face the Utah Valley University Wolverines at 8 p.m. Saturday. Games can be viewed on the WAC Digital Network at wacsports.com.
–Joahana Segundo and Gabriel Galvan contributed to this report.
