The hopes that Jack built

ATLANTA – Jarrett Jack used to sleep with a basketball. It was the last thing he thought about at night, the first thing on his mind when he woke up in the morning.

“He had these drills he would do in his bed,” his mother, Louise Jack, recalled. “He would lay flat on his back and do things with the ball on his fingertips.

“He would fall off to sleep with the basketball,” she said.

Not much has changed over the years. Jack still is consumed by the sport, often heading over to Georgia Tech’s arena late at night to work on shots he might need in a game. He’s all alone. No coaches. No teammates. Sometimes, if the light switch is locked up, he’ll practice in the dark.

“I can make do,” Jack said, “as long as I’ve got a basket and a ball.”

Gotta make 10 shots going to the left off the pick-and-roll. Now, 10 going to the right. OK, let’s do some pull-up jumpers off the fast break. All right, it’s time to work on the 3-point shot. A couple of hundred from seven different spots on the floor should do the trick.

“He’ll call me and say, ‘Hey mom, I’m on my way home from the gym,’ ” Louise Jack said, marveling at her son’s dedication. “It’s 11 o’clock at night.”

Jarrett is the consummate gym rat, going almost everywhere with a basketball in his hands. Only recently did he stop traveling with his ball. Yep, he would carry it right on the plane, making sure it was never more than an overhead bin away.

That single-minded devotion has paid off for Jack. He’s one of the best players on the one of the best teams in the country, starring at point guard for the No. 3 Yellow Jackets, who play Gonzaga in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Last season, Jack guided Georgia Tech all the way to the national championship game. Along the way, he was voted Most Valuable Player of the St. Louis Regional, scoring 29 points in an overtime victory over Kansas to ensure the school’s second trip to the Final Four.

Jack is determined to get back to St. Louis, where the Final Four will be held this year. He still thinks about the loss to Connecticut in the last game of last season. This time, he wants to be the one cutting down the net.

“I’m working to be the leader who gets us there,” he said.

Jack steadily improved during his first two years at Georgia Tech, but he’s taken his game to a whole new level as a junior.

It started with the first practice of the season – and hasn’t let up. Coach Paul Hewitt said he’s never had a player maintain such a high level of play for such a long period. There have been no off days so far.

“I been around a lot of guys who put in the physical work,” Hewitt said. “But what separates Jarrett is he puts in the mental work. I’m talking about things like filmwork. He watches more film that any player I’ve been around. He’s almost like a Peyton Manning, breaking things down and trying to see how he can get better.”

In Georgia Tech’s first five games, Jack shot nearly 63 percent from the field, missed one free throw and averaged 14.8 points. But that’s not all. He was averaging nearly six assists. He was third on the team in rebounds. He had six steals.

In a rout of Michigan, he was nearly perfect running the offense – 11 assists and no turnovers. In the next game against Georgia, he made all seven of his shots, including three from beyond the 3-point arc.

Already, there’s plenty of speculation that this will be Jack’s final season at Georgia Tech. He shrugs off talk of the NBA, saying he won’t even consider it until the season is over.

As he told his mother: “We didn’t win the championship last year. I’m focused on that and focused on making the dean’s list. If anything else comes up, I’ll talk with you and dad about it.”

At 6-foot-3 and a solid 202 pounds, Jack is bigger than many of the point guards he faces. Whatever he concedes in quickness, he makes up with size and positioning. He’s able to post up smaller players, contest shots and play a major role on the boards.

“I’ve always felt that it’s hard to take a big guard out of the game,” Hewitt said. “He’s one of those guys who just fills up the stats sheet. If he’s not scoring, he’s getting assists, he’s getting steals, he’s getting rebounds.”

Jack has revived Georgia Tech’s tradition of outstanding point guards, a lineage that includes Mark Price, Kenny Anderson, Travis Best and Stephon Marbury. In fact, Jack wears No. 3 in honor of Marbury, his favorite player.

“A lot of people say the only reason I came to Georgia Tech is because I wanted to be like Stephon, blah, blah, blah,” Jack said. “I didn’t come here to be the next Stephon Marbury. That’s not realistic. We have different styles, different coaches. It’s nice to have a tradition, but I wanted to come in here and make my own mark.”