Watch closely as Jade Loville touches down her right foot, then her left as she catches a pass and elevates over her defender and releases a shot.
Arizona’s newest women’s basketball standout does it every single time. The only thing that changes is the foot she starts with; that depends on which side of the court she’s on.
There’s some serious jump in Loville’s jumper. Most women in college and the pros don’t jump as high as Loville, if at all.
The 5-foot-11-inch guard/forward says she elevates to gain an edge. She can jump 32 to 33 inches, the second-best mark on the team behind freshman Lemyah Hylton.
“I feel like if I get high enough, it’s uncontested even if the defender is right there, because once I’m at a certain height, the hand is below me and now it’s just the rim,” said Loville, who will make her Arizona debut on Thursday, when the 19th-ranked Wildcats open their season against NAU in McKale Center. “I like to tell people, ‘Once I jump and I’m in the air, all I see is the rim. Everything else is blurred and it’s just like this slow-motion moment of me and the ball and the rim.’ I think it definitely gives me an advantage when I’m off the ground. …
“It’s different when you’re in the air floating for a little bit and having the time — your release at the peak of your jump shot and knowing where to take off, when to take off and when to locate the basket. I think just studying that and knowing that it would set me apart was something that had me determined to master it.”
Loville’s leap has been part of her game since middle school. Her father, Derek — a three-time Super Bowl champion with 49ers and the Broncos — told Loville that opponents would be bigger, longer, quicker and would be able to jump high at the next level. She stopped shooting from her chest, like middle schoolers do, and moved the ball on her body. She also began jumping when she shot.
It wasn’t easy at first, Loville said. Her perception was off a bit when she added a little more jump, and she had to focus more on her core and her legs instead of her arms. Time and a whole lot of football drills — there’s her dad’s influence again — helped Loville get more comfortable.
To build explosiveness, Loville does a lot of bounding and single-leg bounding. She added broad jumping and stair-running.
Loville jumps off different platforms at different angles to strengthen her knees. Run into Loville on Arizona’s campus, and you may also see her jumping rope. She always carries one in her backpack.
Arizona’s Jade Loville puts up a midrange jumper over against Cal State LA’s Ashely Orozco.
“I can warm up with it on the court; it can be a cool-down method. I’ve brought it into the weight room with me and just kind of throwing it in between sets. Let’s say I’m squatting that day, so I’ll squat maybe do some box jumps and then jump rope,” Loville said. “And now that my legs are fatigued, it’s even harder to keep that rhythm and keep that balance. I think that’s it’s so beneficial to jump rope. … I love to jump rope. Just having those — a lot of what is the quick-twitch muscles — when you build that quick-twitch. it just becomes natural and you’re able to get off the ground quicker and land softer. I think that’s so beneficial in basketball.”
Loville is also a student of the game. She’s studied the jump shots of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan closely, noting that their upper bodies were always square to the rim when they released their shots. Jordan could leap 48 inches; Bryant 38.
Loville started seeing early results to all her work on her jumper in high school. It continued at Boise State, where she began her career before transferring to ASU. She shot 36% as a freshman, 46% as a sophomore and 43% as a junior. As a Sun Devils senior, Loville shot 43% while averaging 16.6 points per game.
Aari McDonald, who is arguably the best player to don a Wildcat uniform, watched Loville play at Boise State. In one game Loville dropped close to 40 points.
Loville scored 27 points against the Wildcats when the teams met last year in Tempe. McDonald said she had to “turn the game off. She was killing us.”
Loville’s shot reminds McDonald of her former UA teammate, Amari Carter, who was a Wildcat during the 2019-20 season. Both Carter and Loville favor taking the mid-range jumper, which most consider old-school. Now, players want to drive to the hoop or drain 3s.
The jump is the key to her shot.
“How are you able to elevate and just separate yourself from your defender? No matter if it’s contested or not it’s still a good shot for them,” McDonald said.
Rim shots
Loville has four keys to her jump shot: “Balance, shooting at the height of your jump. Following through. You want to have the same follow-through. A lot of my trainers tell me (it’s) at 9 o’clock, so it’s not at 12 or here at 5, it’s somewhere right in the middle and holding that until the ball goes through. That’s something that I still need to work on. That’s the balance. I think you have to complete those repetitive movements often so it becomes muscle memory. When you’re moving, you have to do it off different platforms, catching the ball from different angles, so that you can find the rim at any given time.”
Cate Reese (concussion) is expected to play in Thursday’s opener. Reese hit hit head and elbow on the court in the first minute of last weekend’s exhibition win.
Lauren Ware‘s surgery to repair the patella in her right knee last week was successful. Coach Adia Barnes said that the odds of a future injury are low. “I think the decision to get surgery was the right decision which I supported,” Barnes said. “She’ll come back stronger and be ready.”
Longtime Arizona radio voice Derrick Palmer is back on 1400-AM after spending last year on hiatus. He will also host Barnes’ weekly radio show.
