Jahmir Young’s huge freshman year has helped make Charlotte a legitimate NCAA contender
Jahmir Young, the Charlotte 49ers’ standout freshman guard, was four years old when the 49ers last made the NCAA tournament. If the 49ers pull a couple of upsets in March and make it back to college basketball’s showcase event for the first time since 2005, Young will be one of the biggest reasons why.
Young is 6-foot-1 — no 49er is shorter. Yet he ranks as Charlotte’s unlikely leader in rebounding. He also is second on the team in scoring, second in assists and tied for first in steals. Young has been named Conference USA’s Freshman of the Week a ridiculous eight times this season already out of a possible 16 weeks — no one else has won it more than twice.
“I wasn’t sure that success would come this early,” Young said Thursday as we sat together inside the 49ers’ Halton Arena.
But it has. Young has helped give rise to 49ers Ron Sanchez’s first good team as the 49ers’ head coach. At 15-11, Charlotte isn’t great — the 49ers sit fourth in Conference USA entering Sunday’s home game against Florida International. In the upcoming conference tournament, which begins March 11 in Texas, the 49ers will probably need to win three straight games to get the lone NCAA bid available.
But it’s all a heck of a lot better than it has been in awhile for a program that had fallen on rough times. Charlotte posted five straight losing seasons until this one, going 6-23 two seasons ago under Mark Price (and then interim coach Houston Fancher after Price’s early-season firing) and then 8-21 in Sanchez’s first rebuilding year.
So the 49ers have already won more games this season than they did in the previous two combined. They helped their statewide profile in November by beating both Davidson and Wake Forest. And an actual homecourt advantage has also returned to Halton, where the 49ers are 12-1 this season and haven’t lost since Dec. 3.
Young scores 12.6 points per game for this balanced team and is a 37 percent shooter from three-point range. But he said his favorite part of the game is guarding another player one-on-one on defense.
“The most fun is testing yourself against the guy you’re guarding,” Young said. “Being able to stop somebody? That’s the best part.”
With Sanchez teaching the suffocating defensive style that he learned under Tony Bennett while an assistant at Virginia, Charlotte plays a lot of grueling games where the final score is in the 60s. No one averages even 15 points (Jordan Shepherd leads the team at 14.0).
“We’re all good friends,” Young said, “and we enjoy grinding out games together.”
Young had high-level instruction both at DeMatha High in Maryland and for Team Takeover, a Washington, D.C.-based AAU program that was so good that Young usually came off the bench.
“He’s been coached really well,” Sanchez said. “Sometimes you get guys who you have to clean it up a lot, and you hope you get guys you have to clean up a little. Those are the guys that usually have the most impact as young guys, especially on the defensive side.”
The oldest of four siblings, Young said his parents split up when he was in middle school, forcing him to become “the man of the house” in a home helmed by his mother and grandmother.
Young played more football than basketball until high school, when he realized he might have a future in hoops. Charlotte beat out Old Dominion in the modest recruiting battle for Young, a three-star recruit — Hofstra and LaSalle were also involved.
The fact that Young leads the team in rebounding is one of the 49ers’ most unusual stats. He averages 5.3 rebounds a game, which doesn’t sound like that many but is a full rebound ahead of everyone else.
The key, Young said, is that every other 49er has to block out. All five 49ers crash the boards on defense, Young said — there’s no leaking out for a potential fast break.
“I rebound the elbow,” Young said, referring to the spot on the floor he runs to after a shot. “I hit my man first. Well, we all hit our men first — then we go.”
For these 49ers, “then we go”’ could be an apt motto. The 2019-20 season has been a fine sports year for Charlotte, which had unprecedented success during the most recent football season under coach Will Healy.
Now the basketball team is finally winning, too — in search of that first NCAA tournament bid since 2005. It may or may not come this season. But by the time Young finishes his career with the 49ers, I bet it will.
