The college basketball universe of the T-League is taking notice of what is happening in Jackson, MS. Former star player Robert Brooks was tabbed to lead the program a little over two seasons ago, and he has quickly injected life into the program not seen in a long time.

Brooks himself is one of the most decorated players in program history who is still living. While the T-League is now in its 324th season, Jackson hasn’t hade the NTT in over 100 years. Not even a fluke conference tournament championship to earn a berth. Brooks’s player credentials are that he was named of the Second Team All-Conference three times.

Brooks didn’t have time to recruit heading into his first season as coach, but managed to land a couple of solid late commits in forwards Justin Goodrich and Spencer Cohen. That modest success now must be viewed as a harbinger of things to come, as Brooks has now landed elite recruiting classes in his first two full years in the recruiting cycle. And Goodrich and Cohen are providing a further boost now to those two classes which has the team ranked #24 in the country after eight games this season.

It’s not such an uncommon thing anymore for some coach to pop up at a new school and employ recruiting techniques to boost their new program such as “recruit players credibly accused of sexual assault”. But that is not what Brooks is doing in Jackson, and it’s freaking some people out.

He’s recruited six players in those two full cycles, who could have at most a combined +12 in intelligence. They come in at a still wild +10.

“I’d like to say that I have focused on these players because I want to have true student athletes on campus,” Brooks said. “But I have to admit that I’ve done it for myself. It’s easier to coach smart guys. And there are more of them hooping than people think.”

It could be another move from Brooks when he first took over that has helped him on the recruiting trail. He renamed the program the Freedom Riders, after the bus riding activists operating during the country’s civil rights era.

“It’s not a history that gets acknowledged a lot in these parts. We all know the state of Mississippi wishes Jackson just didn’t exist, state capital or not,” Brooks said. “It’s been something for me to talk with our players and prospective players about, and I think it attracts those wise young men here, to know about the place they’re coming to play basketball.”

The jewel so far for Brooks has been Phillip Russo by pure accolades. But one could make an argument easily for his fellow sophomore, point guard Jordan Flores. Flores started out their freshmen season on fire, with a five game stretch early scoring 33, 36, 29, 26, and 39 points. At that point he was a national sensation, but his scoring pace dropped off after that.

And so while he was named Conference 10 Freshman of the Year, awarded after game 18 of 24 on the season, a week later it was Russo whose body of work was favored and he was named Second Team All-League Freshman.

But if you talk to people on campus, current freshman Garrett Burks is considered the biggest score so far. He’s not as prolific offensively as Russo and Flores, but can hold his own. He is dominant in every other facet of the game, however. At 6’8″ with his skillset, he is a major disruptor on the floor. He rebounds like a more athletic Yao Ming. He locks up his counterparts defensively.

Burks not only chose to come to Jackson when he’s a native of North Carolina who had those options at his disposal, he committed very early in his senior season of high school. Some were agog at his decision but it’s already looking solid, at least.

Brooks landed Burks pretty easily, but there are signs that there are already copycats out there. Burks told this reporter that he’s found a lot more competition on the guys he’s targeted this recruiting cycle.

“We had to actually make some adjustments to our priorities in midstream this season, as we needed to get active with some different guys than we expected. I think part of the extra competition is that this isn’t a very good class for big men, so demand way exceeds supply. But still, it’s a different feel out there on the trail.”

After the first pass through divisional opponents, Jackson is in first place in their conference. Next week, however, is when they play the best of their opposition and that is when we will see just how magical this season will be. But even if it’s not this year, it looks like Jackson has entered a new era and will be putting some kind of hardware on display in the athletic department sooner rather than later.