Every year, the McDonald’s All-American Games feature the best high school basketball talent in the country. Johnson County will be represented this year for the first time.
Center Grove senior Trayce Jackson-Davis will be among the two dozen stars on the court in Atlanta Wednesday night for the boys game, which will be shown at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
Jackson-Davis, listed on the roster at 6-foot-10 and 235 pounds, will play for the East team.
"Just going down there with a bunch of my guys that I already love playing with, it’s going to be fun to compete with them," Jackson-Davis said before leaving for the game. "When you play with dudes that are really, really high level, it tends to bring your level up a notch. … I think it’s going to be a lot of fun."
National accolades aren’t really anything new for Jackson-Davis, who is rated among the top 20 senior prospects in the country and earned a gold medal with Team USA last summer at the FIBA U18 Americas Championship.
But he still considers the McDonald’s nod a particularly special one.
"It’s great, honestly," he said. "You just see those names — LeBron, James Harden, Kevin Durant, dudes that are pros, All-Stars, and you see that they’ve played in that game, and you see the honor of being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself."
Including Jackson-Davis and East teammate Isaiah Stewart of LaPorte La Lumiere, there have been 51 boys from Indiana schools named as McDonald’s All-Americans since teams were chosen beginning in 1977.
That list includes a number of current and former NBA standouts, including Mike Conley, Shawn Kemp and Zach Randolph.
The last five Indiana Mr. Basketball winners have all been McDonald’s All-Americans: Trey Lyles (2014), Caleb Swanigan (2015), Kyle Guy (2016), Kris Wilkes (2017) and Romeo Langford (2018). Jackson-Davis is considered a heavy favorite to win that award, which will be presented on May 5.
