Hometown Heros: Five Preston Hollow natives will appear on March Madness rosters

Thursday morning marked the tip off of March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament where 68 teams will face off in 67 single-elimination games.

Across the country, worker productivity drops and the word “bracket” peaks in google searches as we are all sucked into the, for lack of a better word, madness.

In this year’s tournament, five men from our neighborhood will be vying for the biggest win in college basketball.

Here is how to follow along with our hometown heroes’ progress.

We need to start with a shoutout to Michael Jankovich, who currently has his head in the game as No. 1 seed Kansas is facing off against No. 16 seed Howard. Kansas is the defending national championship team, and Jankovich played 10 games with that national championship team.

 Jankovich may have been born in Nashville and graduated from a preparatory school in Massachusetts, but he played three years with Jesuit College Preparatory in Dallas. 

The senior Guard scored 1,254 points during his three years in Dallas, and Jankovich’s father, Tim, was the men’s basketball head coach at SMU from 2016 to 2022. 

The next baller with Preston Hollow ties to take to the court will be Max Abmas, a senior Guard for Oral Roberts University. 

Born in Rockwall, Abmas played at Jesuit and was named to the Dallas Morning News’ All-Area and All-Region II-6A teams. In the 2018-2019 season, Abmas hit 109 3-pointers.

No. 12 seed Oral Roberts is an underdog going into a matchup against No. 5 seed Duke, but Abmas is going into the game with several big accolades. 

He is the 10th highest scoring player in Oral Roberts franchise history with 1,819 points, and has the fourth most 3-pointers in program history with 301 made.

At 6:25 p.m. on Thursday, the No. 2 seed University of Texas will face the No. 15 seed Colgate. On Texas’s roster is Gavin Perryman, a Redshirt Freshman Guard from Jesuit. 

Perryman hasn’t seen much time on the court this season, but he is ranked second in Jesuit program history for scoring. 

Perryman is also the son of Brandy Perryman, who played at Texas from 1995-1998 and finished his career as Texas’s all-time most accurate free throw shooter.

Thursday is truly the day of Jesuit alumni, with Julius Marble on Texas A&M’s roster. No. 7 seed A&M will face No. 9 seed Pennsylvania State University at 8:55 p.m.

Marble is a junior Forward for the Aggies, and has made appearances in all 34 games so far this season. Marble was named the SEC player of the week in January. 

While a senior at Jesuit, Marble had a stellar performance that included 13 double-doubles, four of which occurred in his final four games as a Ranger.

Texas A&M will be the last game with a Preston Hollow tie played Thursday, but on Friday, Hillcrest High School alum Daniss Jenkins will appear as a member of the Iona Gaels. 

Iona is a No. 13 seed facing No. 4 seed UConn. The game will tip off at 3:30 p.m.

Jenkins is a junior Guard who transferred to Iona from Odessa College. In a Dec. 22 game against Niagara University, Jenkins scored his season high 31 points.Â