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| Cary-Grove's Claire Jakubicek (right) gave a verbal commitment to Northern Illinois. (Lauren Anderson – Shaw Suburban Media) |
Claire Jakubicek can’t explain it with words, but the Cary-Grove senior said her trip to the Northern Illinois campus on Friday gave her a different “feeling” than any of her other numerous college visits.
That inkling was good enough for Jakubicek, a 6-foot forward, to give a verbal commitment to first-year NIU women’s basketball coach Kathi Bennett on Monday.
“The main reason that I picked NIU was not only did I love the school and the coaches, and I was blown away by the arena, but when I walked on campus I had this feeling where I knew this is where I wanted to be,” Jakubicek said.
The Huskies gain a versatile, do-everything combo forward in Jakubicek, who averaged 16.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.1 steals and 2.3 assists as a junior. C-G coach Rod Saffert said Jakubicek is one of the team’s best defensive players after averaging 4.1 deflections per game and that the four-year starter is on pace to break the school’s all-time scoring record.
“She’s tough because if you want to put somebody on her one-on-one in the post, you’re going to get burned,” Saffert said. “If she plays the perimeter, she’s going to have someone smaller on her, and she’s such a good ballhandler and so strong that she’ll blow right past you. She’s a very versatile player.”
Jakubicek – whose mother, Ellen, attended NIU – chose the Huskies over scholarship offers from Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Ball State, Lehigh, Eastern Michgian, Western Michigan and others.
One of the main reasons was Bennett.
“She’s just one of the nicest coaches I think I’ve ever met,” Jakubicek said. “She’s just a very positive person and has such a faith in what she does. I just think that she’s really going to turn the program around. It’s going to be fun playing for her, and I think we’re going to have a pretty good team.”
Jakubicek’s family, including her grandparents, aunts and uncles, rarely miss one of her high-school games, and she chose the Huskies partly so that they could see her play at the Division-I level.
But even though she landed the C-G star, Bennett may still visit Cary. Jakubicek’s younger sister, Olivia, a 6-foot sophomore forward, already is receiving mail from the Huskies and other programs.
The newest Huskies commit said she’d try and help the Huskies land Olivia, if she chooses to play in college, but that she’ll enjoy playing prep ball with her kid sister for the time being.
“I want to make my senior year really fun and enjoyable,” said Jakubicek, who led C-G to a regional title and 26-4 record last year. “I want to make it really memorable.”
