EMCC’s Jakorie Smith tabbed NJCAA Division I Honorable Mention All-American

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Three-time all-region, all-conference standout Jakorie Smith of East Mississippi Community College has added to his impressive list of accolades by earning honorable mention honors on the 2021-22 NJCAA Division I Men's Basketball All-America Team. Selections were made by the NJCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee and announced this week by the national office headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Smith, from Utica, averaged a team-leading and career-high 17.7 points per game this past season and also led the Lions with an average of 7.9 rebounds per contest to rank sixth and 10^th, respectively, in the MACCC. In shooting 46 percent overall from the field along with posting career-best shooting percentages from three-point range (37%) and the charity stripe (85%), Smith helped lead the 21-7 Lions to their second conference tournament championship in four years and a berth in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament quarterfinals. The 6-foot-6 forward capped his productive three-year EMCC career by pouring in a career-high 36 points during the Lions' 76-73 overtime home loss to LSU Eunice in being named to this year's NJCAA Region 23 All-Tournament team.

As a three-year starter in helping lead head coach Billy Begley's EMCC Lions to a composite overall record of 48-22 (.686) and conference mark of 28-11 (.718), Smith scored 1,075 career points (15.8 ppg) along with totaling 548 rebounds (8.1 rpg), 97 assists, 96 steals and 39 blocked shots. His career shooting percentages were 47.4 percent overall from the field, 34.8 percent from beyond the three-point arc and 79.7 percent from the free throw line. Smith also recorded 21 career double-doubles during his 68-game EMCC playing career.

Coming out of Raymond High School in 2019 as a member of three Class 4A state championship teams, Smith averaged 15.2 points and a career-high 8.4 rebounds per contest as an EMCC freshman. He then averaged 13.3 points and 7.7 rebounds an outing during the pandemic-altered 2020-21 season to repeat as a first-team member of the conference's All-North Division squad.

Having taken advantage of the NJCAA's COVID-19 ruling that granted student-athletes an extra year of collegiate eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic, Smith returned to the Scooba campus for the 2021-22 season and capped his EMCC career by garnering NJCAA All-Region 23 and All-MACCC First Team honors for the third consecutive year in advance of this year's All-America recognition.

Smith becomes East Mississippi's first men's basketball NJCAA All-American since the Lions previously had five All-America selections during a four-year span (2010-13) when they claimed four consecutive NJCAA Region 23 Tournament championships en route to making successive NJCAA Tournament appearances in Hutchinson, Kansas. Jarekious Bradley earned first-team honors during the 2012-13 season, while current EMCC assistant men's basketball coach D.J. Evans and Colin Borchert made the second and third teams, respectively, in 2011-12. Prior to that, CoCo Ware garnered first-team accolades in 2009-10 and Deonte Alexander was named honorable mention the following year in 2010-11. 

Along with EMCC's Smith, other men's basketball players from MACCC member schools who earned NJCAA All-America recognition this past season were Northeast Mississippi's Zeke Cook (third team) and Pearl River's Jaronn Wilkens (honorable mention).