Jackson still has favorite school

Schools from across the country are recruiting Lonnie Jackson but the Valencia, Calif., shooting guard still seems enamored with one Pac-10 school although he said all his options will remain open.

Jackson, who averaged about 24 points per game in his junior season, has already visited Arizona State twice and raves about the program, coach Herb Sendek and his opportunities if he goes to play for the Sun Devils.

"I'm still keeping my options open but out of the Pac-10 I like Arizona State so far but I haven't visited Washington or any of those schools," Jackson said. "I'm going to visit Washington and Stanford these next couple weeks or in a month or two.

"(Arizona State assistant coach) Scott Pera is the one that first started recruiting me. They were the first school to really contact me. They have a new facility down there and that's not bad, it's really sweet. They have it hooked up down there.

"Coach Sendek is just really smart and really bright and their offense, they didn't have the athletes this year to run up and down, but they run off a lot of picks and they got their shooters a lot of jumpers. I'm a shooter and I like to shoot it."

Stanford has been in much more contact recently and so has Washington, Harvard and Pennsylvania are getting involved and Jackson visited Pepperdine when it played Gonzaga this season.

Jackson, rated as the No. 35 shooting guard and No. 147 prospect in the 2011 class by Rivals.com, said the Ivy League schools and Pepperdine are certainly places to consider before a decision is made.

"I like the academic part of it," Jackson said of Harvard and Penn. "I've been working hard on my grades in high school and all the schools that have contacted me, it's not like I'm going to throw it in the trash. That's a really good option to have.

"Pepperdine was fun. They have a lot of good energy down there and I was talking to (associate head coach) Marty Wilson and he has a good plan for the future. They want to start recruiting better athletes and he was saying they have a good plan for the future. I like how he was talking about the program, he was cool and I really liked him."

Jackson, who has a busy AAU schedule with Pump-N-Run, camped at Kansas last summer and could hear more from the Jayhawks because his father is close friends with assistant coach Kurtis Townsend.