Former Woodbury Basketball Star Transfers From Davidson To Stanford

WOODBURY, MN — Woodbury native Michael Jones is set to continue his NCAA basketball career at Stanford University after transferring from Davidson.

The Stanford men’s basketball team confirmed Jones' transfer — the program’s first since 2009 — with several tweets Wednesday, including a highlight reel from Jones’ final season at Davidson College.

Jones said he was “really excited” to get to work with his new teammates and “can’t wait to help this team win!”

“I felt I had a great connection with the guys both on and off the court and a staff that really believes in me as a player,” Jones told GoStanford.com, the university’s athletics website.

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Jerod Haase, Stanford’s director of men’s basketball, called Jones’ transfer “a groundbreaking moment” for the program and said he is a “fantastic kid from a great family” who is “driven to achieve both on the court and in the classroom.”

The former Woodbury star “provides a tremendous skillset” to add to the team, Hasse said, noting Jones can “score in a variety of ways and can defend multiple positions.”

Jones’ experience playing an “integral role on an NCAA Tournament team … will immediately lift our program,” Haase said.

Jones joined the Davidson men’s basketball team after graduating from Woodbury High School in 2018, but he was forced to sit out his entire freshman season due to injury, according to the school.

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He started 21 of 26 games the next season as a redshirt freshman during the 2019-20 season and built a reputation as a long-range shooter. He shot higher than 42 percent from long range and made five 3-pointers in multiple games, according to statistics from Davidson.

Jones made just one start during the 2020-21 season but appeared in all 22 of Davidson’s games that year. He averaged 5.1 points and just over one assist per game that season, according to ESPN.

Jones cranked up his offensive output during the 2021-22 season, his final season at Davidson. He played in 34 games for the school and averaged 11.8 points, 3.6 rebounds and almost two assists per game, ESPN statistics show.

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Jones scored eight points and added six rebounds and three assists as Davidson lost by a point to Michigan State University in the first round of the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, according to ESPN stats.

Davidson fell just short of winning the Atlantic 10 championship in its previous game, losing 64-62 to the University of Richmond. Jones scored 17 points in that game and recorded five rebounds.

Jones was courted as a graduate-student transfer by Stanford, the University of Alabama and Northwestern University, three programs that were looking “for a difference maker from beyond the arc,” 247Sports reported.

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The NCAA established a transfer portal in October 2018 to allow student athletes to explore their academic and athletic options, the report states.

Jones has two years of NCAA eligibility remaining.

Woodbury High School head basketball coach Kent Getzlaff called Jones “the best player that’s ever played’ at the school in a March 2018 article from the Republican Eagle.

Jones averaged more than 25 points per game and shot almost 43 percent from 3-point range as a senior at Woodbury High School, the report states. He also broke the school’s scoring record, finishing with 1,793 points, the Republican Eagle reported.

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