What makes college basketball so great is the fact that there are certain players that tend to take over during the NCAA Tournament. The March Madness odds are always impacted by the top players in the sport, and there have been some terrific players that have emerged out of nowhere in March.
Jimmer Fredette is one of those players, and he went on a magical run with the BYU Cougars from 2007-2011. In the long list of players that have emerged as stars during the 2022 NCAA Tournament, Fredette and his senior season might be at the top of the list.
Fredette was born in Glen Falls, New York, and he developed a love for basketball at a very young age. Family members recall “Jimmer” training for basketball as early as kindergarten age, and that helped him become well known with basketball fans in that part of the country.
After scoring 2,404 career points in high school, recruiting websites began ranking him among the best players in the country. Fredette was not someone that was getting recruited by the biggest college basketball programs in the country, but he was receiving enough D-1 interest to be able to choose where he wanted to attend school.
After receiving official scholarship offers from 12 different schools, Fredette decided to attend Brigham Young University, and this decision ended up having a huge impact on the rest of his life.
Blossoming at BYU
It wasn’t until his sophomore season at BYU that Fredette really started to impact the March Madness lines for his team. After a freshmen season in which he saw the court very little, Fredette had some monster-scoring games as a sophomore.
Heading into his junior year, Fredette was being called one of the best players in college basketball, and it didn’t take him long to back up that claim. On December 28, 2009, Fredette scored 49 points in a game against Arizona, and then it became an obsession to watch the Cougars and track his points.
His senior season is when Fredette was able to show off other parts of his game as he spent much of the time being double or triple-teamed. He still led the nation in scoring, and he kept the Cougars in the national conversation all season long.
Fredette was able to guide the Cougars to the Sweet 16 as a senior, but his career ended with a loss to the Florida Gators. He was a first-team All-American for his efforts and will go down as one of the best college basketball players of all time.
Not Much NBA Success
Fredette might have been a major focus for those that bet on March Madness, but that just wasn’t the case in the NBA. The Milwaukee Bucks took Fredette 10th overall in the 2011 NBA Draft, but he was immediately traded to the Sacramento Kings.
Fredette poured in a career-high 24 points on February 12, 2014, but two days later he found himself as a free agent. The Chicago Bulls quickly signed the former All-American, but this started a carousel of different teams and different cities.
It became pretty apparent that Fredette was not going to be able to enjoy the same success in the NBA that he had at the college level.
An International Icon
It’s not uncommon for basketball players to head overseas after failing to make it in the NBA, but that’s typically the last you hear of them in the United States. News outlets aren’t going to cover former stars that have gone the international route, but that wasn’t the case with Jimmer.
Videos and highlights just continued to pop up when it came to Fredette, as fans just can’t seem to get enough of the shooter. He had a 51-point game in one of his first-ever appearances in China, and fans over there fell in love with him as well.
On November 11, 2017, Fredette poured in 75 points for his team in a losing effort, but it is those scoring performances that continue to make him popular. Playing overseas isn’t the only basketball action that Fredette has been participating in, as he has also been a fixture in the “The Basketball Tournament” in some capacity as well.
Fredette could be back in the world spotlight in a couple of years as well as he is training for a potential spot on the 3-on-3 basketball tournament at the Paris Olympics.