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As his teammates celebrated PSA’s third national championship inside #ClubDub, Taiga Jones stood off to the side, wiping tears from face.
“I was glad,” Jones explained recently. “I felt a lot of pressure from home. I was glad to be done with the pressure in such a way that we won a championship.”
Jones, the sharp-shooting postgrad from Japan, said he was glad too to announce that he will play next year at Iowa Western Community College. And that he learned so much from his experience at PSA, which will only serve to help him as he heads to the Midwest.
“I don’t think there will be the same pressure,” said Jones, PSA’s only Japanese student this past year.
“My heart is stronger now. Being at Putnam Science wasn’t hard because I was part of a family here. I feel like I have to work even harder next year, so my feeling is not to relax. There is still more work to do. But I feel sure that I can do it because I have done it here first.”
The 19-year-old Jones had an up-and-down year with the Mustangs, but was always a threat to score from anywhere behind the 3-point line. He started his career with a bang, making 12 of his first 24 3’s over the first four games, scoring in double figures in three of those games. But he only went for 10-plus points once more over the course of the season. An ankle injury and sickness kept him out of five games midway through, and he was never quite himself the rest of the way. That, coupled with the emergence of another international shooter, Soti Nafpliotis, led to a reduction in his minutes.
“I do think that time he missed really threw him off a little,” said coach Tom Espinosa. “But he was the same kid, every day. One of the best shooters we have had here, ever. Taiga’s a terrific worker, a terrific young man. He should get a chance at Iowa Western to play and show everyone what he can do.”
Jones, who works as tirelessly on his English as he does on his shooting, wants to study philosophy in college because, as he said, “I like to think.” And if he can play well enough at Iowa Western and beyond, he’d love to a professional basketball career in Asia. If that doesn’t work out, he wants to return home to Japan to be an editor and writer.
Even then, he said he will remember his time at PSA fondly.
“The games were the best,” he said. “I will remember the final. I will miss the PSA basketball family. That wasn’t hard. I don’t speak English well, but it’s still basketball. We can still play together. We can all speak basketball. And I am grateful for that.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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