Mr. Colorado Basketball Candidate: Jaizec Lottie
Editor’s note: Once per week, from now until the start of the high school season, Prep Hoops Colorado will profile a preseason candidate for our Mr. Colorado Basketball award to be given at the end of the state tournaments in February. Important to note: Just because a player doesn’t appear in a profile, it certainly doesn’t mean he can’t be chose as Mr. Colorado Basketball. Players profiled in the preseason have simply compiled the kind of prep career resumes that makes them intriguing candidates for the award. Today: Jaizec Lottie.
Many believe that the era of the true point guard has come to an unceremonious close. The feeling is that a player who once pulled on every string of the way an offense operates has given way to a breed of attacking, score-first guards.
It’s not to say there is anything wrong with this emerging style, it is important to note that as endangered as they may be, the so-called true point guards are not extinct, and there is one in Colorado who is flourishing.
Jaizec Lottie, a 6-foot Cherokee Trail junior is the epitome of a point guard. His numbers as a sophomore last season — 11.3 points, 4.9 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game — provide a snapshot of a player who had his hand in everything the Cougars did.
His ability to make an engine run makes Lottie a preseason candidate for the first PHC Mr. Colorado Basketball award.
Lottie took an even bigger leap this summer as a player whose success is measured not just in how many times he can score the basketball, but he can make the pieces around move like a well-rehearsed symphony.
“He may be the best pure point guard in the state,” said Lottie’s coach with Billups Elite, Quincy Sanders, told PHC earlier this month. “He can do everything to break his man down, he can get to the basket, and he can see the play before it develops.”
Lottie had an eye-opening experience this year when he had the chance to attend an Adidas All-American camp in New York City, competing against the best players in the country on that circuit. Lottie more than held his own, finishing among the camp’s assist leaders. His ability to create at an elite level at the point guard position has had Lottie fielding Division I offers from Santa Clara, Air Force and Northern Colorado.
For his part, Lottie knows he still has plenty of improving left to do before he reaches the level he wants to reach — and that’s part of what makes him dangerous.
“I just want to keep going out there,” he told PHC last month, “and keep showing colleges what I can do.”