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Oh, brother: Jake Jacubec chasing Nate’s mark
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Struthers guard Jake Jacubec (3) recently passed 1,000 points for his career, helping the Wildcats earn the All-American Conference American Division title.
STRUTHERS
They’ll always be 101/2 months apart, but they won’t always be 279 points apart.
When Struthers High’s Jake Jacubec eclipsed 1,000 points with a 39-point effort against Niles on Feb. 10, he became the fourth-highest boys scorer in school history.
Now Jake, who just turned 18 on Feb. 6, trails brother Nate, who will be 19 on March 17.
Jake will build on his current total of 1,005 with two regular-season games remaining, plus tournaments. Nate, now playing at Mount Union, finished with 1,284 when his high school career ended last winter.
To say the least, it’s a first for Struthers and rare to have two siblings score and surpass 1,000, let alone in back-to-back years.
Jake, whose 430 points are on pace to break Rick McFadden’s single-season school record of 526 set during the 1998-99 season, has followed in Nate’s footsteps, but he’s not a clone.
“He’s more of a true point guard,” Struthers coach Joe Savko said of Jake. “Nate was a catch-and-shoot guy who was a really good defender and worked hard on both ends all the time. Jake is a bit more freestyle, as far as with the ball in his hands; he can do a lot more and he can get his own shot whenever he wants.”
Jake’s career-best 39 points lifted his average to 25.3 ppg. through 17 games. The school record of 46 is held by Jim Fox (1992-93).
Jake’s 1,005 trails McFadden’s 1,336, brother Nate’s 1,284 and Jim Fox’s 1,041.
“I’m probably not going to catch him,” Jake, a 6-1 senior point guard, says of Nate’s 1,284.
Jake reached 1,000 following a steal.
“I went down and layed it up,” he said of the basket in transition off a steal at Niles’ free throw line.
That basket put him at 1,001, at which time the game was stopped for him to receive the game ball from Savko and a standing ovation from the Fieldhouse faithful.
Nate Jacubec was on hand, too.
“I got the game ball and then they switched balls and we started playing again,” said Jake, who said he’s received interest from St. Francis (Pa.), Navy, YSU and Div. II California, Pa.
He played JV ball as a freshman and also got limited varsity playing time — maybe 10 minutes here and there. As a sophomore, he started every game but the first two. After that, J.J. was off to the races.
Jake may also finish with the scoring average mark for a season, if he tops Fox’s 23.5 established during 1992-93. Nate averaged 11.3 ppg. as a sophomore and 15.0 ppg. as a junior.
Point guards aren’t necessarily scorers, but Jacubec has the green light to put up points.
“I’m just being aggressive and if there’s an open shot, I take it,” said Jake, who also has a brother in seventh grade, Jaret. “If there’s an open shot I can’t get, I’ll dish it to a teammate.”
Scoring in a variety of ways, Jacubec says his field goals are more layups than mid-range shots.
“Out of one-hundred 2s, probably 60 are layups and 40 are mid-range off of dribble pull-ups,” he said.
Jake says he’s a good defender.
“Every game, I pretty much guard the other team’s best player.”
Jake is on a roster with six others seniors: Dylan Schmidt, Jordan Sapp, Austin Grewe, Richard Maynard, Christian Walker and Anthony Cutrone.
Normally, Schmidt sets ball screens for Jacubec or, if Jake is coming off a screen to get a shot off, Grewe is setting the screen.
Sometimes, Jake encounters a box-and-one defense or he and Schmidt are targets of the triangle-and-two.
“We try to keep all the players involved,” Savko said. “So what we’ll do is screen with those guys [Jacubec and Schmidt], so our other guys coming off the screens are more open.”
Schmidt is averaging 15.0 and Sapp 10 ppg.
“Dylan and Jordan are both good shooters and Austin does the rebounding,” Jake said. “He [Grewe] does the dirty work and takes a pounding inside. He brings toughness to our team.”
Savko said Jake is a gym rat.
“Jake is a basketball junkie,” he said. “You look it up in the dictionary and his picture’s there. He’s been our point guard for four years including our great team last year when he ran offensive plays. But when we didn’t do everything [designed plays] for him, he still got his points. That makes him such a good player.”
When Nate Jacubec was running the show, Jake still produced.
“You’d look at the scoreboard and Nate’s scoring 20 and Jake’s right there with 16-17,” Savko said. “He got his points without running a lot of stuff for him. So that tells that’s he’s a good basketball player.”
Jake’s points are a mixture, his coach says.
“This season, he probably has a hundred-some 2-point goals, forty 3-point goals and about 110 free throws. So he can shoot 3s, he can come off screens and get to the hoop and he also gets fouled and shoots a very high percentage (85 percent) from the free throw line.”
Savko lost seven players from Struthers’ 2010-2011 squad, including four who averaged in double figures. So this year’s team is more focused around Jake.
“This year, it’s kind of Jake’s show,” Savko said, “but he still gets other guys involved, too. He’s also averaging over five assists a game.”
The son of Jon and Nancy Jacubec had a 41 stroke average as a junior on the golf team.
Jon Jacubec played on Struthers’ undefeated 1980-81 team and finished 21-1 after losing to Rayen. Jon, who later played for Bob Huggins at Walsh, says he scored about 500 points.
“I tell Nate and Jake that if they had the 3-pointer when I played, they’d be chasing me [for career points],” he said.