Playing for a team nicknamed the Blazers seems particularly appropriate for Jalen Perry, the John A. Logan College (JALC) guard who’s been on fire lately.
The men’s basketball player of the year in the Great Rivers Athletic Conference and NJCAA Region 24 last season for the Volunteers will play for the University of Birmingham next year.
Perry recently told the Southeast Illinois News that he chose UAB because he considers Robert Eshan a great head coach and Perry connected well with others when he visited the school.
“They showed me a lot of love when I was there, and I feel like it was the perfect place to go to help me be successful at the same time,” Perry said.
Perry also was considering Illinois State, Washington State and Northern Kentucky.
Last season, the 6-foot-3-inch sophomore guard averaged 19.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while making 50.3 percent of his field-goal attempts. That included hitting 46.1 percent of his tries from behind the 3-point line.
Perry credited JALC head coach Kyle Smithpeters with getting him to work harder.
“I felt like once I really started getting into the gym and just sticking to the craft and working on what I felt like I needed to, it all just kind of came,” he said. “And I just stayed with it.”
The hard work showed in his improvement statistically from his freshman year at JALC. In the 2015-16 season, he averaged 13.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists while shooting 47.5 percent overall and 44.4 percent on 3-pointers.
“I feel like I played my best basketball there,” he said.
So far, basketball has taken Perry from his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to JALC, and will soon deliver him to Birmingham. He said he enjoys the changes -- just like the swings in a game of basketball.
“I feel like there's nothing like it,” he said. “It's a real up-and-down game. It's crazy to see how you know somebody can be up 10 with, say, two minutes left, and then all of a sudden they lose the game. It's just crazy how much of an emotional roller coaster it is. I feel like that's the best part of it, because you get so many different things out of it.”
Perry said he plans to study business administration, but also will be looking into playing basketball professionally.
UAB is a member of Conference USA in NCAA Division I. The Blazers went 17-16 last season, including a 9-9 record in conference.
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