City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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HAMDEN, Conn. -- Just like he did with his Drexel teammates, Kari Jonsson showed Quinnipiac early what he’s capable of.

On the Dragons’ first possession against the Bobcats in a non-conference matchup Wednesday night, the lanky freshman guard drove down the left side of the lane, drawing three defenders before dishing off to big man Rodney Williams for a layup. That began a stretch where he assisted on three of Drexel’s first four buckets, including another drive-and-dish to another forward, Austin Williams.

By the end of the night, Drexel’s finest offensive performance in nearly seven years, he’d knocked down five 3-pointers to help him to 17 points, adding in a career-high eight assists in arguably his most complete performance yet.

“I have the green light to shoot -- If I’m open, I’m shooting it,” he said. “That’s our whole team, if guys are open, they’re shooting it. And for me today, I was feeling good, I was getting open shots early so I was feeling pretty good.”

Jonsson doesn’t exactly look like a high-level basketball player, with a slender frame that he’s still growing into, and short brown hair that he typically keeps tucked up behind a headband during games.

But the 6-foot-3 native of Hafnarfjörður, Iceland -- “It’s pretty rough, people have a hard time pronouncing it,” he said  -- has been one of the Dragons bright surprises of the young season.

Jonsson’s excellent outing on Wednesday night helped Drexel to a 91-74 win over Quinnipiac. It was the Dragons’ biggest offensive outburst in a regulation game since scoring 93 against Towson on Feb. 2, 2010.

Through the Dragons’ first 12 games of the season, he’s averaging 10.4 ppg with a team-best 31 3-point field goals on 72 attempts, a 43.1 percent clip that puts him in the top five in the Colonial Athletic Association. He’s scored in double figures in half of his team’s games, including a career-high 25 points at High Point on Dec. 3.

“He’s going through some ups and downs in games, but the reality is he’s a talented player, a talented player, and we know that,” Drexel coach Zach Spiker said. “He’s played international ball, he’s played at a high level...we’ve been excited for a long time about him.”

Spiker gave a lot of credit to assistant coach Rob O’Driscoll for running point on Jonsson’s recruitment. O’Driscoll went over to Iceland to meet with Jonsson prior to a May official visit to the school.

Jonsson committed to Drexel on June 1, just a little more than five months before his freshman season was to begin and just weeks before the Dragons’ first offseason team activities.

“I actually missed his visit so I didn’t get a chance to meet him,” senior forward Rodney Williams said, “and (the rest of the team) was like ‘we’ve got a kid from Iceland coming, looks like Justin Bieber.’”

Before he came to school, Jonsson first played for Iceland in the FIBA U20 European Championship, where he averaged 17.1 ppg, 4.7 rpg and 3.6 apg in seven games of competition, helping his team to a second-place finish in the event.

Division I competition is obviously a step up from the Euros in terms of athleticism and skill, but it hasn’t been too much of a culture shock for Jonsson. For three years previous, he played for his hometown Haukar Hafnarfjörður in the Premier League, Iceland’s top division for competitive basketball.

“I was the youngest guy in the league...so I’ve been used to going against older and bigger guys,” he said. “Here, you have more athletic guys, big guys and athletic, fast guards and all of that. That was a little bit of an adjustment -- I knew [about] it before, but you don’t get the feeling until you get there, until you’re in the moment, so I’m adjusting to it.”

Just being in America, playing Division I basketball, is the realization of a lifelong dream.

The son of a basketball coach, Jonsson was introduced to the game early, first playing organized basketball at six years of age.

“It’s kind of the only thing that’s been around my family, basketball was always the sport for me,” he said. “March Madness (was) always the biggest sporting event for us...we go crazy over that.”

Drexel hasn’t been in the NCAA Tournament while Jonsson has been alive, last making it under head coach Bill Herrion in 1996. It’s not likely to happen this year, though the 6-6 Dragons are already much-improved under Spiker’s first year after a 6-25 season that spelled the end for former head coach James “Bruiser” Flint.

Jonsson is one of two standout freshmen for the Dragons, along with 5-10 point guard Kurk Lee, Jr. (15.3 ppg, 5.4 apg). Rodney Williams (17.1 ppg, 6.3 rpg) is having a career year as a senior, but he knows he wouldn’t be having anywhere near as much production -- individually or collectively -- without the younger guys playing the way they have.

“Them being able to step in has been huge for us and big for our success,” Williams said. “A lot of times you see freshmen struggle early, but being that they came out to a hot start, it’s propelling us. We’ve just got to continue to help them along as they grow.”