Jalen Smith

Jalen Rasheed Smith was born Mar. 16, 2000 in Portsmouth, Virginia to Charles and Orletha Smith. He has one sibling, Kiara Smith. His sports hero is the late Kobe Bryant. Smith's nickname is "Stix". His alternative career path would be computer programming, and if he could play a different sport, it would be tennis. Smith attended Mount Saint Joseph High School in Baltimore, Maryland. As a senior, he averaged 22.2 points, 12.0 rebounds and 4.0 blocks per game. In 2017 and 2018, Smith was twice named the Gatorade Maryland Boys Basketball Player of the Year. He was also named to the 2018 McDonald's All-American team. Smith was among the top-25 recruiting prospects in 2018 and opted to attend the University of Maryland for college, where he studied information science. As a freshman, he was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman Team. As a sophomore, Smith was named First Team All-Big Ten, Big Ten All-Defensive Team and Third Team All-American. Smith started all 64 games he appeared in during his two seasons at Maryland, helping the Terrapins establish a tough post presence to contend with the physical centers of the Big Ten Conference. Despite sharing the frontcourt with Bruno Fernando during his freshman year, Smith still put up averages of 11.7 points and 6.8 rebounds on his way to Big Ten All-Freshman honors. In his second and final season, Smith took the conference by storm, averaging a double-double with 15.5 points and 10.5 rebounds. He saved his best work for Big Ten play, recording a career-high 29 points Jan. 26 at Indiana. A few weeks later, he set a career-high with 19 rebounds against Northwestern. Smith finished the year strong, posting a double-double in 13 of his last 14 games. He was consistently on the Wooden Award watchlist during the season, and when it was all said and done, earned first-team All-Big Ten and Big Ten All-Defense team honors. He was also fourth in the conference in field goal percentage (.538) and third in the conference in PER (29.3).