Intro to Gregg Doyel's feature in the Indianapolis Star on Illinois sophomore and Indianapolis native Jalen Coleman lands, published on Jan. 10, 2017.
BLOOMINGTON — He's just not missing. Illinois sophomore Jalen Coleman-Lands is running the Assembly Hall baseline and catching the ball in the corner and turning and shooting and 22 feet later the net barely moves.
Illinois isn't going to win this game, the Illini aren't going to beat Indiana the way Indiana is scoring, but Coleman-Lands is burying shot after shot and this is why he was such a serious candidate at Cathedral to win IndyStar Mr. Basketball. He never did — he transferred to non-IHSAA La Lumiere for his final two years — but this game Saturday at Bloomington is why he was a Top-40 recruit and why Indiana and Purdue and Notre Dame and Michigan State offered him scholarships a few years ago, and why he'll be on the NBA radar a few years from now.
And when the game ends, I need to know more about this 6-4, 185-pounder from Indianapolis, one of the best pure shooters in the Big Ten. His mom is sitting behind the Illinois bench. Dionne Coleman Lands is wearing a replica of her son's No. 5 jersey. She sees me coming. She's smiling.
Your son, I tell her. He's a fascinating basketball player.
"He's a lot more than a basketball player," Jalen Coleman-Lands' mom tells me. "That's the first thing he'd want you to know."
OK, now I really need to know more.
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» Read the full story at IndyStar.com
