How freshmen Ian Jackson, Drake Powell are already impacting UNC Tar Heels basketball

North Carolina’s Ian Jackson laughed when asked to describe his roommate Drake Powell: “Me and Drake are totally different people.”

He’s got a point. Jackson is pure New York — from his windmill dunks to the swagger he carries off the court. The freshman from the Bronx known as “Captain Jack” has a Louis Vuitton letterman jacket (complete with rhinestones) in his closet to prove it. He often messages back and forth with fellow NY hoopers and teammates Elliot Cadeau and RJ Davis, just “talking about each others’ fits.”

“I’m the best dresser on the team,” Jackson said. “I dress better than all of them.”

Powell, on the other hand, is much more understated. He’s a quiet kid from a town of less than 5,000. In Pittsboro — about a 30 minute drive from UNC’s campus — Powell was a generational player at Northwood High School. He spoke softly and carried himself with a quiet confidence as he chatted with various reporters at UNC men’s basketball’s media day on Friday.

Meanwhile, across the court….

“Ian for President!” yelled Jackson as he walked off the floor, to nobody in particular.

Two different personalities, indeed. But Powell and Jackson share a room, incredible athleticism and five-star rankings as top recruits coming out of high school. This season, the dynamic duo will step into prominent roles as newcomers to the UNC backcourt.

But first, they need to catch up to speed. And quickly.

Coach Hubert Davis emphasized on Friday he wants the Tar Heels to be quicker in transition than they’ve ever been. The challenge is now getting Jackson and Powell ready to run alongside returners like Davis, Cadeau and Seth Trimble.

“We’re not there yet,” Hubert Davis said of the team’s speed. “I’ve been straightforward and direct that I want to be the fastest team in the country from free throw line to free throw line. In order to do that, you’ve got to be in the best shape of your life.”

Jackson and Powell have been working on that. It hasn’t exactly been easy.

“We had our little 10-minute scrimmages, three of them,” Powell said of a recent practice. “I was a bit winded from those but, yeah, just want to keep going.”

Practice on Friday, the beginning of which was open to the media, offered an inside look into just how seriously UNC is taking its pace.

The squad was timed as it worked on its transition offense: rebounding, zipping an outlet pass to midcourt and then finding a player cutting to the rim for a layup.

This drill, and slight variations on it, continued for several minutes. Dribbling was minimal. That ate up too much time, after all. Timers at both ends of the floor ticked down. It was a competition: how many baskets could the Tar Heels make before the buzzer sounded?

Hubert Davis paced the court and called out to the players, “I like the pace!” The coach lifted up his shirt to wipe his forehead. Even he was working up a sweat.

“Coach Davis emphasizes that (pace) in practice every day,” Jackson said. “Just being a part of it… it’s way more harder than you would think. But we’ll get it done and that’s how we like to play.”

Despite their differences, Jackson and Powell are both adjusting to the fast-paced style Davis demands. And they’re not the only ones making adjustments this season.

With a fresh mix of faces in the locker room, returners like RJ Davis have taken on bigger leadership roles , guiding the new guys through the transition. Hubert Davis, in particular, shouted out how quickly the team’s younger players like Jackson and Powell are catching on.

“We’ve got a bunch of new guys this year but they’re all younger,” Hubert Davis said with a laugh. “Last year it was a bunch of 30-year-olds, so everybody was able to acclimate to our game easier.”

Jackson and Powell aren’t the only incomers adjusting to UNC’s speed. Fellow freshman James Brown, a four-star recruit and towering presence in the frontcourt, is also learning to keep up with the Tar Heels’ lightning-fast transition offense.

Though each brings their own unique style to the court — Jackson’s flair, Powell’s quiet confidence, and Brown’s length — all three are united by the same challenge: mastering the breakneck pace.

“I think the freshmen, and the transfers, they’re really coachable, so they learn things on the fly,” RJ Davis said. “If they mess up one time they’ll get it right the next time. They’ve made my job and the coaching staff’s job easier in teaching them the pace of how we want to play and how we play… they’ve done a good job of adjusting to it.”

Staff writer Chip Alexander contributed to this article