JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jackson basketball team chased a championship down to the wire but fell in heartbreaking fashion on Saturday in Lakeland.
St. Petersburg Gibbs surged back to topple Jackson 49-43 to win the Class 4A title at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland. Jackson was trying to become the first Duval County Public School to win a basketball state championship since Raines won back-to-back crowns behind star Derwin Kitchen and coach Doug White in 2003-04. Ronald Durham had 11 points to lead Jackson.
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Instead, it was another crushing loss for an area program.
Bradford won the Class 1A crown in 2022, but not since Bolles in 2016 has a Jacksonville metro area school brought home a championship. Private schools have dominated on the state landscape in the new millennium. Among local public schools to win championships in the 2000s and on, the list is brief — Nease in 2002, Raines’ titles and Bradford.
The Tigers had run into private school monsters in three previous title game trips under Collins. But Gibbs proved a matchup that was perfect for the Tigers. Jackson had beaten Gibbs in the regular season (52-48) but getting it done under the bright lights of the cavernous RP Funding Center was another story.
The Tigers led 22-18 at the break but saw the Gladiators (27-3) turn things around with a furious rally after halftime. Jackson went 4 minutes, 58 seconds between baskets in the fourth quarter. That meant watching a 36-34 lead dissolve into a 45-41 deficit after a Jahari Simmons 3-pointer ended the drought.
For Collins, a 1993 Jackson graduate, he’ll have to wait for his full-circle moment. Collins was Mr. Basketball during his final season at Jackson in 1993, an award he won just hours before scoring 28 points to lead the Tigers to a 90-67 win over Rockledge to win the 2A crown on March 13, 1993.
He’d embark on a stellar college career after that, going to Florida State and parlaying that into a second-round draft selection in the NBA draft.
But post-playing career, Collins wound up back at his alma mater teaching and coaching. He’s built Jackson into perennial contenders. He’s taken the Tigers to Lakeland five times and played for four state championships. But he’ll have to wait until at least 2025 for his next shot.