FHSAA 5A Regional Quarterfinal: Jacksonville Jackson at Bradford Preview

The Jackson Tigers and Bradford Tornadoes will meet in a Class 5a regional quarterfinals match-up tonight in the 2017 FHSAA Boys Basketball State Championships. This is the first round of the tournament and the Tornadoes are hosting the game.

Match-up

• The Tigers (15-10) are the favorites tonight against the Tornadoes (12-14) despite being the road team. This is the fourth consecutive season that Jackson make the playoffs.
• Jackson won the only previous head-to-head game this season 55-51 against Bradford on December 19th, 2016.
• The Tigers won the same game last year 58-42 against Bradford.
• The teams score a comparable amount of points: Bradford scoring 59.2 and Jackson 58.9 points per game.
• The teams have faced two common opponents, with Jackson holding a 2-0 official record against Duval Charter and Bolles. Bradford won on the road against Duval Charter but lost to Bolles.
• Bradford has a perfect 4-0 record within their district while Jackson is 4-1 in district play.
• Jackson is struggling recently holding a 3-4 record over the last month, but hold an impressive 6-1 record when playing on the road. Bradford are 7-6 at home.

Team Leaders

Tigers

The Tigers are lead by Mike Decembre, Juwan Knight, and Joshua Knox who all combined to score 35 of 51 points in last year’s title game loss to fellow Jacksonville high school Raines.

Tornadoes

Jordan Lee is the Tornadoes leading scorer with 12.5 points per game. Darren Mackey does the job on the board collecting just over nine rebounds per game. Chris Cummings averages just between four and five steals a game and also leads the team in steals with almost three a game. Jimtaz Curry is their leading shot blocker with about one a game.

What’s Next

The winner of this first round match-up will take on the winner between Interlachen (14-13) and Raines (18-9) in the regional semifinals on February 21st.