Isaiah Jackson's UK visit was a beautiful thing

Isaiah Jackson took an official visit to Kentucky last weekend, and there were two main questions coming out of the trip. How did the trip go for the five-star power forward out of Michigan, and did he get an offer from the Big Blue?

Cats Illustrated spoke with his father, Wes, on Saturday evening, and he answered both in a manner that should make those Wildcat fans who read this article very pleased.

Q: The first question is an obvious one. How did the Kentucky visit go?

Jackson: "It went beautiful, man, beautiful. Everybody was professional. Thay answered a lot of questions before we got a chance to ask them. The facility was, man, beautiful. I love the group of people. It went well."

Q: Did Isaiah get an offer while he was there?

Jackson: "Well, they've been offered, back a few months ago, but we just kind of never announced it. They offered, and we just told them that we're going to make a decision in November. but as the only school that he's went to, I love what I've seen like all around. I wasn't disappointed at anything. Obviously, we have probably a couple of more visits to go on to give the other schools a chance as well. Isaiah's down to really to a top few (schools). He'll making visits here soon."

Q: You said that the Kentucky coaches had some answers even before you asked the questions. Can you share what some of the questions and answers were?

Jackson: "They were small questions as far as dorms. Where they will be staying? What type of security would they have? What type of blockers would they have to kind of keep them away from all of the other hoopla that goes on? Keep the young men away from things they don't want to be around. Just the attention to detail that they had keeping the kinds kind of not secluded, but in their own dorms. Keeping them busy with other activities in the facility to train and do all of this stuff.

We just loved everything from the nutrition standpoint, how would they eat? What type fo meals would they eat? What type of nutrition plan would they have? They showed us everything, the meal preps, the kitchen that they had to prepare meals from, the cook they had, We enjoyed everything. It was beautiful, man."

Q: I know you probably had expectations, and you've mentioned a lot of things, but was there anything specifically that was even better that you thought going in?

Jackson: "Oh yeah, they have a Sports Science facility that kind of blew my mind. I knew that the facilities would be top of the line, but when I went to the Sports Science Department and met the guys in charge of the department and saw the athletes hands on and saw them actually go through the testing, they were special to come in that Saturday and go through the testing, and see the bigs go through all of the tests, it blew my mind. It blew my mind."

Q: As you talked to them, have they mentioned how they would like to use Isaiah and what kind of role they see him in there?

Jackson: "Just to put him in as a big, a forward. They talked about the work as far as training him to be a top All-American athlete. We didn't discuss offenses or anything, just mentioned that he wanted to utilize Isaiah in the offense to showcase his ability. He would be able to play his game there."

Q: You said they didn't talk about offenses, but did they talk about lineups? Would it be more small-ball or more of a two-post type of deal?

Jackson: "I look at the guys that they have been seeking after. Boston had committed. They look to me like when you have guards that they are trying to recruit at 6-4 and 6-5 and above at 6-7, it's obvious that want to go not small-ball, but to play bigs. It looks to me like more positionless, so therefore anybody could switch on anybody guard them or have a mismatch and score on them. I just think that looking at their recruitment that what they're trying to do is obvious that they want to go the way that the NBA is basically going and college basketball for that part, teaching these kids how to play positionless basketball."

Q: You talked about other visits that you would like to take. Do you know where they might be?

Jackson: "Alabama, Syracuse, Michigan, Michigan State, which is local. We just have to go up the road. We have already reached out to Oregon, and Memphis, of course. He pretty much just wants to kind of cut through the chase and not go to a whole lot of schools, but kind of give him the idea of where he wants to go."

Q: Last question, it looks like what he's trying to do is go ahead and get the visits set up and taken so he can make his decision by the time November rolls around.

Jackson: "Oh yeah, we plan on making our determination in November for Early Signing and getting it over with. We should have adequate enough information. Like I said, Kentucky has been awesome. Obviously they're kind of top of the bunch right now, but we haven't seen any other schools but Kentucky. I loved Kentucky."