Jackie Young may have had the best high school basketball record of any Indiana player ever at Princeton Community High School. Since then, she has continued to win, including three years at Notre Dame, six seasons in the WNBA, and two trips to the Olympics.
It’s no surprise that Young played well in the gold medal game on Sunday, when she helped the US come back to beat host France 67–66 in Paris.
Young played one of the guard spots and scored two points, grabbed four boards, and gave and received three assists. He also stole two balls. In 2021, the 26-year-old won a gold medal with the U.S. 3×3 basketball team that won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Over the course of four years, Young averaged 30.8 points, 10.3 rebounds, 5.5 assists, and 3.5 steals per game. During that time, Princeton won 97 games and only lost nine. They had a winning streak of 53 games and won the Indiana Class 3A state title in 2015.
With 3,268 points, Young was the top scorer in Indiana high school basketball history, for both boys and girls. In 2016, she won the Naismith National Player of the Year award, was named a McDonald’s All-American, and was named state champion by Gatorade USA.
It was 105-10 for her three years at Notre Dame, where she scored 12.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game.
The Las Vegas Aces picked Young with the first pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft. Her team won the WNBA title back-to-back in 2022 and 2023, and she has been named an All-Star three times. The 18.5 points she scores each game this season is the most in her career.
The Indiana native did a great job helping the U.S. team win its eighth straight gold medal at the Olympics. In a win over Germany, she scored 19 points and made five 3-pointers, which was the team high. Before he was put in the starting group, Young was coming off the bench for the U.S.