Sept. 23, 2014
Towering at 6-feet-10-inches, Damian Jones asserted himself as a playmaker in his first year. The electrical engineering major from Baton Rouge, La., was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team by the league’s coaches. He pounced on the glass, leading the team with 5.7 rebounds a game. He enters his sophomore campaign as the top returning scorer for the Commodores after averaging 11.3 points last year.
CN: Was there a moment last season when the game started to slow down for you and you felt like you turned a corner?
Damian Jones: Really, at the start of the SEC season, I started seeing ways to improve and started to see some openings. So that helped me to (enhance what I learned) from preseason, and I just expanded on it from there.
CN: How rewarding was it to be named to the SEC’s All-Freshmen team?
Jones: It was a huge honor, and it gave me a lot of confidence that I could really do something in this league. Hopefully I can just improve from that.
CN: Was the adjustment from high school basketball to college basketballâ€â€and SEC basketball, in particularâ€â€even tougher than you envisioned?
Jones: I knew it was going to take a lot of work, but it was a big adjustment for me still. The players were much faster, and you’ve got to move much faster  especially when you try to give defensive help and stuff like that. It is much different from high school, where you could just lollygag around. (Laughs).
CN: So, growing up in Louisiana, were you an LSU fan? Or did you even follow SEC basketball?
Jones: I grew up watching Duke. A lot of people hate Duke, but I really liked them.
CN: How much do you enjoy playing in the SEC?
Jones: It’s been pretty fun, and it’s big competition. Everybody has the “want-to-win” and they bring it every night.
CN: Who would you say was the best player you were matched up against?
Jones: Johnny O’Bryant. … And it was LSU, my hometown team, (so there was extra motivation to be) playing against them. I knew it was going to be tough, because he’s a really good player, and he got to me.
CN: What was it like to play at Memorial Gym?
Jones: I had never been there (before arriving at Vanderbilt), but I had watched some games on TV, so I knew the court was different. And I always wondered how it worked when (a player was) subbing in. And when I did it for the first time, it was kind of weird. But it’s really cool.
CN: You set the bar really high for your sophomore season. What are some areas where you think you can improve?
Jones: I can improve on my left-shoulder game, and I can improve on defense, moving quicker and thinking about the game more. Just continuing the maturing process.
