March 13, 2025 — Atlantic City, NJ — The Marist men’s basketball team played the biggest game of the year. After a historic regular season, the Red Foxes squared off against Mount St. Mary’s in the MAAC Championship quarterfinal round.
Senior center Jackson Price missed eight games of his final season due to injury, finally retaking the court twice to finish the regular season before the big stage, looking to help his team win the MAAC. His comeback was short-lived — Price tore a ligament in his right wrist after only 13 minutes played. Sidelined again, Price could only watch as Marist lost in a close battle, 62-58, unable to return for his final collegiate game.
“The culmination of not being able to help my team in such a crucial moment and it being my last college game, it was a tough experience,” said Price.
Marist men’s basketball won 20 games for just the fifth time in the team’s 64-year history, and its 16-3 start to the season tied their program record.
“I think something that made it better was none of us went into the season thinking ‘We’re going to try to break records this season,’” said Price. “We just knew we all had the same plan—were all on the same page.”
After a 66-79 loss at Harvard to start the season, the Red Foxes went on the road and stunned the Richmond Spiders 79-72, entering the game as nine-point underdogs. The win was a sign of good things to come, both for the team and Price—the big man poured in 20 points on six-of-ten shooting from beyond the arc, also adding five rebounds and five assists, joining junior guard Elijah Lewis as the only two Red Foxes to record a 20/5/5 game.
“The way we started at Harvard, I think it left a bad taste in all of our mouths. I know for me, I had a different mindset going into that game—that’s not how I wanted to start my senior year,” said Price. “[Richmond] was probably one of my favorite games, just with all of that mixed in. It set the tone for how good we knew we could be.”
In a close 72-67 victory over Siena on January 31, in which Price played 34 minutes, he broke his fourth metatarsal in his foot, sidelining him for eight games. During rehab, the tough reality of his final season being derailed by injury began to dawn on Price.
“I didn’t want to dwell on [my senior season] too much. It really hit me when I got hurt in the Siena game, I couldn’t play for pretty much all of February,” said Price. “I think having to watch from the sidelines and not being able to contribute on the court was when it really hit me. I was thinking, ‘This is the last one.’”
He logged six minutes in his return against Merrimack on March 6, but looked better in the Red Foxes’ final regular-season game, scoring 13 points in 22 minutes against Mount St. Mary’s two days later. The rust may have been knocked off just in time for the MAAC Tournament, but another injury took him off the floor.
Price tried to play in the second half of the playoff game, but left after 30 seconds because he could not shoot. He had a procedure done recently to repair the damage to his wrist.
“It was tough, I wanted to be out there and help however I could. Seeing us not have the same outcomes, it kind of felt like, ‘I should be doing more,’” said Price. “You just have to roll with it and make sure you help as much as you can off the court.”
The 6-foot-8 center’s impact was undeniable. Besides averaging career-best numbers of 9.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per game, his 34.1 percent three-point shooting opened up the floor for Marist in ways the other centers couldn’t.
The Red Foxes posted an above-average 104.9 offensive rating in the 19 games when Price was available to play. In the eight games without Price, excluding an 89-point shootout versus Canisius, Marist had a below-average 94.5 offensive rating.
Filling in his absence were freshman center Tarik Watson and redshirt freshman center Jason Schofield. Both played limited minutes before Price’s injury, and suddenly became vital pieces in Marist’s lineup, seeing consistent minutes in the double figures for the rest of the season.
Watson averaged 7.6 points in nine starts after the Siena game, culminating in a season-high 16 points on 7-for-8 from the field in a loss to Iona on Feb. 8. Schofield backed him up, averaging 6.5 points in the same stretch.
“I loved watching them. Tarik came into his own as a freshman, having never experienced college [basketball] before, and Jason showed what he could do, since he didn’t play last year,” said Price. “It was never the physical [part] I was worried about with them, it was the mental side, which is where I tried to help. But past that, it was all them, they handled it well.”
Despite the solid play of the two centers in Price’s absence, the Red Foxes went 4-6 to end the season after January 31, sustaining a 16-point average margin of defeat in their last two games leading up to Atlantic City.
“It was a roller coaster towards the end of the season mentally. It’s a long season, you’re dealing with trying to stay focused, but you’ve also been there since June,” said Price. “We tried to understand that, yes, we’re mentally tired, but so is everybody else, so this is the time to push through.”
What’s Next?
After being forced to exit the floor in the quarterfinal loss to the Mount, Price had to consider his next move—call it quits on a four-year collegiate career, or look for opportunities to follow his path to the next level. Price chose the latter, announcing his decision to sign with SML Sports via an Instagram post on April 17.
SML Sports is an NBA and FIBA agency based in New Jersey that helps collegiate athletes looking to further their basketball careers professionally in domestic leagues or opportunities overseas. Price was contacted by their agent, Shamsiddin “Pop” Little, early in the season, but he wasn’t paying agents any mind during the season to focus on playing. Price reached out after the season and ended up signing with SML shortly after.
“My junior season, I had that thought process of, ‘Do I want to keep playing after this next season, or do I just want to enjoy this next year and graduate, start working,’” said Price. “Last year, I decided that it’s going to be something I want to do for at least a year or two. I had the idea that I was going to go play [overseas after this year] the whole time.”
He wouldn’t be the first Marist player to pursue basketball abroad in the last few years: Max Allen II (Vietnam), Samkelo Cele (Spain), Jordan Jones (Germany) and Matthew Herasme (Argentina) have all carved out careers post-NCAA.
Price has communicated with ex-Citadel teammate Elijah Morgan, who recently signed to play in Switzerland in July 2024, and a high school teammate who plays in Australia, to navigate the next steps of his career.
“Those two have been the main people I’ve talked to—figuring out agents, what to ask, what to look for,” said Price. “I’ve talked to them about their experiences playing overseas in their first year, because they’re in a similar situation.”
Before Price transferred to Marist, he spent two years at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, averaging 13.3 minutes and 4.3 points per game. Military college life was a tough adjustment for Price, but he viewed it as effective preparation for the mental difficulties of collegiate basketball.
“It was a very tough experience, going from a public high school where you don’t have a ton of structure, and then going to a super rigorous college where pretty much every minute of your life is mapped out for you,” said Price. “I think mentally, it helped me be able to withstand a lot of different aspects [of basketball] that I wouldn’t really think about. It was definitely a stepping stone to help me get to where I am now.”
“If I could go back and say one thing to my freshman self, ‘Don’t lose that confidence,’” added Price. “You’ve been the guy for pretty much your whole life before you get to college, then you get there, and you face that freshman wall. Then you start to lose a little bit of confidence, and that can send you on a ton of different paths throughout your career.”
One of his former Citadel teammates in Price’s freshman year, and close friend, senior guard Jason Roche, took the floor against him for the Spiders back in November.
“We were pretty much inseparable [our freshman year], and we still talk to this day,” said Price. “It was a super cool experience to see him, and a couple of our other friends from the Citadel came and watched.”
As his collegiate career came to a close, Price reflected on the value of the bonds he forged at The Citadel and Marist.
“People who play basketball are in the same boat. There’s not really a stronger bond that you can have than with a teammate that you go through all these challenges, ups and downs with. Some of the people I’ve gotten really close with, like Jadin [Collins-Roberts], Josh [Pascarelli], it’ll be similar to my Citadel friends—I don’t ever see us falling out of touch. That connection is something we’ll always have.”
Edited by Marley Pope
Photo by Jaylen Rizzo
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