TALLAHASSEE — After the 2023-24 college basketball season, then-Jacksonville University assistant Michael Fly put the figurative full-court press on Lajae Jones to bring him home to play for the Dolphins.
Jones, a Fletcher High alum, had just won the national junior college championship with Barton (Kan.) Community College. But after averaging 15.4 points and 9.2 rebounds for a 34-3 team, Jones had bigger options than JU.
“The better he got, the harder it got to bring him home,” Fly said.
Jones chose to join St. Bonaventure of the Atlantic 10 coach, but Fly made sure to text Jones and call his family to offer them the best of luck and …
“In recruiting, you’re building a relationship and you’re working toward a fit and especially now with the portal, it’s never a done deal,” Fly said. “You never know what the future holds. I told Lajae, ‘If you’re ever unhappy, you never know where you’re going to be or where I’m going to be.’”
Fast forward to last March. Jones was one-and-done at St. Bonaventure and Fly had just joined Luke Loucks’ new Florida State coaching staff.
Jones was in the portal for six days before become Loucks’ second commitment (March 31) and debuted for the Seminoles against Alcorn State on Tuesday (Nov. 4). Jones started and had 18 points and seven rebounds in 28 minutes of work in a 108-76 FSU win.
Jones’ winding road — from Seattle to the Jacksonville area at age 13 to Stephenville, Texas (Tarleton State) to Great Bend, Kan. (Barton County CC) to Allegany, N.Y. (St. Bonaventure) to Tallahassee (FSU) — has finally brought him closer to home.
“It’s definitely nice,” Jones told me during a recent interview at the Seminoles’ practice facility. “I missed the warm weather for sure and I missed having my family close.”
Hop-scotching the country
Jones moved with his family to Neptune Beach as a teenager and ended his Fletcher career with 1,426 points, 197 assists and 176 steals. He had a chance to move back to Seattle, but chose to stick it out in Florida.
“The friendships I had, it was a better environment for me,” he said.
Jones was discovered during a high school playoff game by former NBA/college coach Tim Floyd, who was retired and living in the Panhandle. Floyd reached out to colleagues around the nation to find Jones a home.
Jones’ first stop was Tarleton State of the Western Athletic Conference. Stephenville is 100 miles southwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Jones played only 10 games and averaged 3.6 points and 1.4 rebounds in 2020-21 for coach Billy Gillespie, the former coach at UTEP, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Texas Tech.
“I learned a lot from Coach Gillespie and how to build a good work ethic and how to get better every day,” Jones said.
Jones’ second stop was Barton County, located in Great Bend, Kan., located 260 miles southwest of Kansas City. Jones’ father, Jackie, played at Barton County before transferring to Oklahoma.
Junior college basketball can be a tricky thing — guys tend to play hero/individual ball to get their shots and points and highlight clips to earn a major-college opportunity. But Jones said his Barton team was different.
“We were all winning (by winning games),” Jones said. “Everybody got to have success in having to move on.”
Jones’ third stop was far, far away from Kansas and Texas and Florida – the St. Bonaventure campus is in Allegany, 81 miles south of where I lived in Getzville, N.Y., while I worked for The Buffalo News. It is a drive over and around mountains and by the time you arrive on campus, you’re only a few miles from the New York-Pennsylvania border.
When I looked at the Florida State roster this summer for a local connection, Jones’ name jogged a memory. I saw him play for the Bonnies in February against George Washington.
We laughed about the weather … and then both shook our heads.
“I think my car got messed up for sure,” Jones said. “The roads weren’t the best on top of the cold weather and snow.”
On the floor, Jones averaged 10.8 points and 5.8 rebounds for the Atlantic 10 Conference program. But it was back in the portal.
Jones’ fit with FSU
Florida State is starting over with Loucks; the Seminoles were voted to finish 15th in the 18-team ACC in the preseason poll. Jones is used to starting over. The Seminoles have 10 new players, including seven transfers.
Jones played well for the Seminoles in two tune-up games. He had 15 points and 10 rebounds against Alabama (109-105 loss) and 15 points and five rebounds against Florida A&M (88-54 win).
“We had certain parameters of things we looked for offensively and defensively and Lajae checked a lot of those boxes,” said Loucks, a former FSU player who was most recently an assistant coach with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.
Top of the list for Loucks was Jones’ shooting ability (.389 from three-point territory for the Bonnies last season), length (6-foot-7), physicality (220 pounds) and experience (33 starts for the Bonnies).
“Being a senior and having experience at a few different levels and (last season) at a really well-coached program (Mark Schmidt at St. Bonaventure), that held weight with us,” Loucks said. “We feel his combination of that and having a pro-level body and athleticism and mobility, he fit perfectly into what we’re trying to build.”
The Seminoles aren’t starting from scratch, but pretty close. There will be tough days and nights, but it is a situation Jones is used to and the best way to survive and then thrive is by embracing it.
“You just have to start with the foundation and just continually build it up,” he said. “You try to be a leader (at a new place) in any way you can, from the weight room to the court, and putting that work in every day and try to have other guys follow you.”
Contact O’Halloran at rohalloran@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: FSU basketball’s new look includes Lajae Jones, former Fletcher High star
Reporting by Ryan O’Halloran, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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