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Inglewood’s Jason Crowe Jr caught the eyes of college coaches far sooner than your typical No. 3 player (according to 247 Sports) in the country. While his dad, Jason Crowe Sr, ran practices at Verbum Dei High School in South Central L.A., a young J2 was glued to the side hoops, expanding on the prolific layup package that’s been on display for the past few years.
“Every so often, the college coach would come and say, These guys right here, we don't want none of them. But I'm going to come back and get your son. I've been watching him the whole time, Coach. Like, I ain't been watching these guys that you told me to watch. Because he would be mastering the game,” Crowe Sr says. “He was there practicing all these types of layups and that was his opportunity to engage himself with the game right there. And he just kept growing.”
When he wasn’t spinning and twisting the ball off the glass in the gym, Jason was doing it on the hoop in his sun-soaked backyard. The bag that’s led to over 3,000 career points and counting has been years in the making. As a freshman, he led Lynwood to a CIF State Championship with 36.4 points per game. At 16, he dropped a 45-piece in the Drew League. And this past offseason, he led the Nike EYBL in scoring with 26.5 ppg.
But the 6-3 No. 1 point guard in the Class of 2026, who’s committed to Mizzou, says he truly realized the height of his powers as a freshman when he dropped 50 during a tournament at MiraCosta College. “That’s when I knew my team needed me to be not the freshman, I needed to be the senior as a freshman. I needed to be that player where it’s like, OK, we put this on you, now try to win the game for us,” J2 says. “I feel like that’s when I became the big-time player I am today.”
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For Jason’s parents, Irene and Jason Sr, that realization came a bit sooner. Around middle school. “Things just started looking different and looking a lot cooler,” Irene says.
His father remembers back to the years before high school when his son would pack out an entire gym with the local crowd and proceed to drop a 40-piece. It didn’t matter who he was playing against, how many guys the other team had stacked up. J2 was going to put on a performance. Just him, the rock and a mad amount of buckets.
“He had a lot of showmanship starting around that age as well. That's the thing that I highlighted with him: how do you stand out? How are you going to make yourself stand out?” Irene continues. “At younger ages, all the kids look the same. So if we're watching you on stream, how are we going to be able to point you out? How are we going to notice you right away?”
Jason’s answer was the same one that his father’s high school teammate and family friend, Paul Pierce, donned throughout his NBA career: a headband. Some kids messed with the accessory for a few weeks, some for a few seasons. But J2 has been consistent with the fabric for years. From lighting up the MADE Hoops circuit as a middle schooler to leading all of EYBL in scoring, the headband is more than just a signature of his game; it's a symbol of his showmanship.
The three-level microwave scoring is what headlines and TikTok edits focus on. And you can’t fault them. He’ll net a 35-footer off a drag dribble like it’s nothing. And then the very next play, he’ll gracefully slice past four defenders into an acrobatic up-and-under. His movements, his cadence, are all steeped in a braggadocious swagger that always ends with the ball finding the bottom of the net. But the locks on defense, his creativity in finding teammates and his traits as a leader are just as potent.
“Once you do something so great, all that other stuff dies down. Everybody wants to talk about the scoring, but a lot of people don’t know that I averaged six assists last year. I averaged three to four steals in a season. People don’t talk about stuff like that,” J2 says. “But I feel like if people really sit there and watch me—and not just the highlights—they’ll see a well-rounded point guard.”
Jason’s all-around game is a product of his surroundings. Between his father’s 13-year career overseas and return to Inglewood to train current and future pros, the game encompassed J2’s environment. And even when the Covid-19 pandemic set in during middle school, Jason didn’t let up. If anything, he dove deeper.
Instead of playing in games, Jason was watching them at home, specifically pulling up the tape of the game’s greats, like Hakeem Olajuwon. He was studying their moves on and off the court. How they lived outside of the arena, what kinds of lifestyles they led. All the while, Jason was bringing the newfound knowledge to his backyard, where he and his father would play one-on-one and run through drills.
“What I saw with him is that as a coach, he was demanding me to be a better coach. He was demanding more time. So as a coach, you want to be prepared,” Crowe Sr says. “If you're going to lead them through a situation, then they need your respect and your work ethic to mirror theirs, if not greater. I think that's something that he brought out of me as well. But he wanted that. He was challenging me. It wasn't the other way around. He's challenging me. Now I'm setting the standard in the workouts, what he should do or not. But his spirit and his love were challenging me to be prepared.”
Jason’s fluidity around the court wasn’t built solely in the confines of his backyard, though, or through the drills that his father would run him through. “It started with just hooping in general,” he says.
The pandemic provided solace, a place to hunker down and dedicate everything to the game. But on his own, they were just drills. And for as much time as he spent in the gym, working with his father, Jason knew he’d need to spend the same amount of time putting what he practiced into play. He didn’t want to be a drill magnet. And definitely didn’t want his confidence to be drawn from the hours he spent alone in the gym. He wanted that confidence to flow from breaking out the same move on a real defender, over and over and over again, until there was perfection.
The constant trial and error of game action has developed the fluidity that Jason plays with, skating around the court with the rock like a rapper searching for the perfect pocket. He’s played against top players in the League in closed runs and gone to battle with the best hoopers the college ranks have to offer. And he’s succeeded every time.
“When I’m playing guys my age, or even younger than me because I’m a senior, I feel like there’s no reason why I couldn’t dominate on the court. And I’ve had that mindset since I was 14 playing 17U,” J2 says. “But now, I’m the top dawg on the court. I’ve still got to keep the same mindset. I gotta kill or be killed. So I’d rather kill than be killed.”
Instead of taking his talents to the numerous prep school programs around the country whose amenities rival major DI programs, Jason’s bag is homegrown. No artificial sweeteners or accelerated pathways included. The decision to keep Jason’s journey local was purposeful; his parents emphasized that their son should build up his character in the same environment that poured into him over the years. How could he do more, with less?
As a 14-year-old, he led Lynwood High School to the CIF Division V state title. As a sophomore, he was posting nearly 40 a night. But when it came to his junior season, an opportunity arose. Jason Crowe Sr could return to coach at his alma mater. And one of the best players that Southern California has seen in years was coming back to lead one of the region's most storied programs, Inglewood High School. “I tell people love brought us home,” Crowe Sr says.
And just as soon as the opportunity to return home came, so did the chance to kick off the homecoming. Utah Prep, touting the No. 1 player in the class, current BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa, was looking to fill out its preseason schedule. Crowe Sr said yes almost immediately, but with one stipulation. Utah Prep had to come to Inglewood.
“And that set the stage,” the elder Crowe says. “The mayor came out. You look at those videos, you'll see Mayor Butts is there. We had F. Gary Gray. We had, like, a laundry list. We had councilmen. We had the superintendent. Everybody was able to come in and socialize. Paul Pierce was obviously there. Trevor Ariza was there. So we were able to bring a community together.”
“That’s what we wanted,” he continues. “We wanted the opportunities for our community. And we wanted to do something that we could reestablish here in our community for other young men and use him [J2] to kind of filter in more resources for these young men. So we’re blessed for that.”
Entering his senior season at the same high school where his father and Paul Pierce put on for Southern California as teammates in the mid-’90s, J2’s focused on doing the same. And this season, the Sentinels are poised to make some serious noise in contention for a state title with Jason at the helm and his father leading the sidelines. The impact that Crowe Jr is having on his community isn’t lost on him either, even at 17 years old. He’s been used to making an impression at an early age.
“I know who I am on the basketball court. I know what I do. I know my ranking. I know cameras are going to come when I play. So the guys that also can play, but they don’t get as much credit as I do, just trying to show them off so college coaches can see them,” J2 says when listing off his goals for this season. “I can’t just be the only one to eat off what I’ve done and what I’ve accomplished. I feel like everybody on my team should be able to get something out of it. That’s what I feel people are most valuable at, not just helping yourself, but helping people around you. And that’s what I feel like I do.”
