Leading Charlotte 49ers to upset of Wake Forest was routine for freshman Jahmir Young

A look of pleasant shock crossed Ron Sanchez’s face Sunday night.

Sanchez, the Charlotte 49ers’ second-year basketball coach, had just been told that freshman guard Jahmir Young had scored 24 points in a 67-65 overtime victory against Wake Forest at Halton Arena.

The 24 points weren’t all that Young contributed to the triumph, the 49ers’ second against a notable foe within five days: He added three assists, three steals and four rebounds (three of them defensive), while not turning the ball over.

“The reason I looked so surprised was that I was so focused on the job (Young) did defensively,” Sanchez said. “I never looked at the offensive side. So, Jahmir, congratulations!”

The emergence of Young is a major reason why these 49ers (2-1) have won two in a row (against Davidson and Wake Forest) as they head into a game at Appalachian State on Thursday.

Not that the defensively focused Sanchez has noticed, but Young is leading the team in scoring (15.7 points per game), with a better 3-point percentage (57.1) than how he’s overall from the field (56.7). What catches Sanchez’s eye more are Young’s defensive statistics: Leading the team with 2.3 steals and — at 6-foot-1, 185 pounds — 5.3 defensive rebounds per game. He was named Conference USA’s freshman of the week Monday for a second consecutive week.

“As much as anything, it shows his grit,” Sanchez said of Young. “It shows he’s buying into doing the non-obvious, hard things. You don’t get anything on the stat sheet for hitting first, for keeping (the ball) on the glass. Those don’t come up.

“We have a team of true servants who don’t care about this. Jahmir didn’t come into (the Wake Forest game) saying he wanted to be the leading scorer. This is a byproduct of him working very hard and doing the little things.”

Young played at DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Md., a program that under former coach Morgan Wootten has produced future pros like Adrian Dantley, Danny Ferry and Sidney Lowe. Young’s AAU team also won the Peach Jam championship in the summer of 2018.

“Playing for DeMatha was a target on your back,” said Young, who chose Charlotte over Old Dominion, Hofstra, Boston College and La Salle. “Teams come after you. So you’ve got to bring your best to every game. It’s tough, but you have to be prepared for it.”

Playing in those kinds of high school and AAU programs prepared Young for the college game — and for a coach that will stress defense above all.

“Jahmir comes from one of the best high school programs in the country,” Sanchez said. “He’s been so well coached, so when we ask him to do something, we’re not the first ones to ask that. When he gets down in the stance and guards, he’s done that at a high level of competition for a long time and done it well.”

Young agrees that what he’s doing now is just an extension of what he’s been coached to do before.

“I’ve had to pick up a few things,” Young said. “But I feel like high school prepared me for this level. In practice every day, I can learn. I’m trusting what we do in practice. Coach demands top effort every time we step on the court, and that starts in practice. When it comes down to games, we treat them just like practice.”

Young is part of Sanchez’s rebuilding project, which started with an 8-21 record last season. Along with the additions of junior guard Jordan Shepherd (a transfer from Oklahoma) and grad transfer guard Drew Edwards (Providence), the 49ers appear to be feeling the loss of graduated point guard Jon Davis -- the program’s third-leading career scorer -- only minimally.

The 49ers are beginning to take to the Sanchez version of the “Pack line” defense he brought from Virginia, where he was a long-time assistant to coach Tony Bennett.

“Their Pack line defense was really hard to penetrate. I mean, we didn’t have enough paint touches — not as much as we had in the past,” Wake Forest forward Olivier Sarr said after Sunday’s game. “They made it hard for us, they have a really great team, a really great defense and they really made it hard for us.”

As structured as the 49ers are on defense — they’re holding opponents to 67.3 points per game and 44.1 percent shooting — their offense has become eye-catching, adding a new twist of some deft back-door passes to players cutting to the basket.

“Coach wants us to play free,” said Young, who made his first eight shots against Wake Forest (four of them 3-pointers). “Of course he has a system. But we trust in what we do in practice and play free. That’s what we do.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 1:44 PM.