The Wichita Eagle/VarsityKansas.com 2015 All-State boys basketball teams (VIDEO)

All-State and All-Class teams are selected by The Wichita Eagle with the help of basketball coaches across Kansas.

Each school’s athletic director is e-mailed a ballot to have their coaches return to The Eagle by the end of the season. Coaches may nominate their own players and players from other teams.

The girls team was selected by Joanna Chadwick. The boys team was selected by Taylor Eldridge. They tabulated nominations from the ballots and got additional input from coaches and other media members.

All-State and All-Class basketball teams are not selected by position.

ZACH JACKSON

6-5, sr., Wichita East

Stats: Jackson, East’s leader on and off the court, led the team at 16.8 points, including 23 points in a 58-43 win over Lawrence in the 6A championship game. Jackson, a guard, caused matchup problems in the backcourt because of his size. He gave East another ball-handler and perimeter player, or another player on the block. He was at his best putting the ball on the floor and getting to the lane for baskets, but his shooting range kept improving as the season rolled on.

College: Nebraska-Omaha

NCAA men’s pre-tournament pick: North Carolina

Most memorable moment: “Definitely winning state. We won the City League, we won the Topeka tournament, we won sub-state and state, so just piling up those championships. After we won (state), we were overjoyed. Just all of that hard work we’d done together paid off.”

Advice you live by: “If you work hard, you can get whatever you want. That’s all I think about.”

Favorite pastime outside of basketball: “Just chill with friends, play video games and watch sports. I’ll beat you in any (video game), FIFA, ‘Call of Duty,’ NBA … whatever you want to play, I’ll beat you.”

Coach Joe Jackson: “Zach has been our leader for two full seasons. He does all the little things people don’t see. In the offseason he was so key for us because he was the guy forcing the other guys to get in the weight room, checking people for not playing hard and letting everybody know when it was time to work. That’s a coach’s dream, to have that senior leadership and that guy who can sense when the intensity is starting to slip or sense when his teammates are starting to lose focus.

“Zach was that guy all season long and that’s a huge reason why he had success as an individual and we had success as a team.”

SAMAJAE JONES

6-0, sr., Wichita East

Stats: His trademark stomp, scream and flex at midcourt early in games was usually the signal that it was going to be a long night for opponents. Jones was second on the Aces at 16.1 points and usually guarded the other team’s best offensive guard, drawing a 1-on-1 assignment with Lawrence star Justin Roberts in the Aces’ victory in the 6A championship game. Perhaps his best performance came in East’s 83-63 sub-state championship victory over Southeast. Jones scored 36 points and forced Southeast’s Jerrick Harding, one of the top scorers in the state, into missing 14 of his first 20 shots. Jones dedicated his season to the memory of his mother, Sharon Haynes, who died of cancer one month before the season started.

College: Undecided

NCAA men’s pre-tournament pick: Kentucky

Most memorable moment: “Winning the state championship. It was exciting, all of these great feelings and being surrounded by all of these great people in a great environment.”

After winning the state championship, Jones ran to the East student section and jumped over the railing and into the crowd. His teammates followed.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it (over the rail) at first … I just had a lot of excitement in my body. It was a lot of chaos, a lot of excited fans, a lot of screaming.”

Advice you live by: “Hard work pays off.”

Favorite pastime outside of basketball: “Playing video games and watching college basketball.”

Coach Joe Jackson: “Just facing the adversity he faced this year, he was amazing. He’s always been an outstanding talent, but I felt like this year he played with more control, with more passion. A lot of his energy, as helter-skelter as it could, was more focused this year. Just his competitive nature, his fire, his desire to play the game and his passion for the game is what sets him apart from everybody. He was really playing with a purpose the entire season.”

KYLER KINNAMON

5-11, sr., McPherson

Stats: Kinnamon, a two-time All-State selection, led McPherson to its second Class 4A-Division I title and a 25-0 season. McPherson has won 40 straight games. Also an outstanding quarterback, Kinnamon’s scoring dropped this season, but that was because he looked to find the open teammate first. He averaged 13.1 points, 6.7 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 3.3 steals while shooting 53.8 percent from the field. He scored 1,172 career points, fifth in McPherson history and is first in career assists (506) and steals (318). Also a disruptive presence defensively, Kinnamon’s intensity and unwillingness to lose made him a game changer. If McPherson needed a basket, he either made it happen by scoring himself or getting a teammate involved.

College: Fort Hays State

NCAA men’s pre-tournament pick: Kansas

Most memorable moment: “My favorite moment this year might have been when Spenser Wine dunked in the championship game towards the end of the fourth quarter. We’ve kind of been on him all year about dunking. He does it so easily in practice every day, and he finally decided to pull it out in the state championship game, so it was really awesome.

Advice you live by: “Play every game like it’s your last. It’s so hard to believe my high school career is over in basketball. It flew by.”

Favorite pastime outside of basketball: “Hang out with the team. We were all together yesterday and we’re all getting together tonight. It’s what we do as teammates. We just love being around each other.”

Coach Kurt Kinnamon: “Obviously his unselfishness just rubs off on everybody. The way that he’s willing to make the extra pass. Pass up a good shot to get someone else a better shot. I think that boils over onto our whole team. Defensively, he was able to keep his man from catching the basketball. His willingness to play extremely hard on the defensive end, it just naturally picks up the intensity.

“His court vision is just really good, seeing angles and going to get the ball and then getting our really good shooters the ball, hitting them where they can catch it in rhythm and shoot the ball without having to reach for the pass.”

TREY O’NEIL

6-2, sr., Scott City

Stats: O’Neil led Scott City to a 25-1 record and the Beavers’ fourth Class 3A title in five seasons and fifth in nine seasons. Scott City was runner-up in 2014. O’Neil is 96-7 in his career. His best attribute is his ability to break an opponent down one-on-one, forcing teams to double team. He averaged 21.8 points, 5.7 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 3.0 steals. Although he battled injuries during his career, he went over 1,500 career points in a 3A semifinal win over Wellsville. He made more than 75 three-pointers breaking a school record for threes in a season. He shot 58 percent from two-point range and 40 percent from three. O’Neil could post up, score in transition or score from four feet beyond the three-point line. Also a standout quarterback, O’Neil led the Beavers to the Class 3A title game and was part of the 2012 3A title team.

College: Fort Hays State

NCAA men’s pre-tournament pick: Kentucky

Most memorable moment: “Winning three state championships for Scott City has to be the best. I’m always going to remember that. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not many kids can play in four state championships and win three of them.”

Advice you live by: “Get better every day and live in the moment.”

Favorite pastime outside of basketball: “I play all types of sports, hang out with friends, play a lot of game on PS4 and X-box.”

Coach Glenn O’Neil: “He dislocated his kneecap three times, once in basketball, twice in football. It affected his jumping and strength, and he didn’t have the same explosion. He started at the end to finally get his jumping back. It affected his lack of ability to go into the weight room and squat and do the clean. those are his favorite lifts in the offseason. As a junior he battled shoulder injuries from football. He had the desire to be a good basketball player, it’s his first love, so he battled through it.”

DEAN WADE

6-9, sr., St. John

Stats: A two-time All-State selection who is also the Kansas Gatorade player of the year, Wade led his team to the Class 2A title with a 26-0 record for his second straight unbeaten 2A title. He also led St. John to the 1A-I title with a 25-1 record in 2013. St. John is 77-1 over the past three seasons. If St. John needed him to, he could average 40 points a game. St. John had balance, so when Wade was double-teamed, it was common for him to make up for it with assists. He averaged 24.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.8 blocks and 3.6 steals. He scored 1,749 career points and had 752 rebounds. His biggest contribution may have been his defense because he always guarded the other team’s best player, even if that player was the point guard.

College: Kansas State

NCAA men’s pre-tournament pick: Kentucky

Most memorable moment: “Winning state this year. It’s my senior year, last year, just a great feeling. It’s by far my best memory.”

Advice you live by: “Play hard. You don’t know when your last time you’ll ever do something will be.”

Favorite pastime outside of basketball: “I hunt, I fish, I run track. I’m a real big sports fanatic, and I hang out with my friends.”

Coach Clint Kinnamon: “When you have a big kid who can stretch the floor like he can, it opens the floor for the other post players. He’s getting other guys shots because of what he can do out on the floor because he draws so much attention. And on defense, we could always put him on the other team’s best player, and he didn’t foul. When you can eliminate someone because of his great length and defense, that helps.

“… Where he made an even bigger improvement is in his mature strength. He’s more bouncy, able to take hits better and finish plays. That’s one thing he was really good at. He had guys hanging on him all the time. I don’t know how many ‘and-ones’ he had. It was a gazillion. He’s finishing plays with guys smoking him in the post.”

JOE JACKSON

Wichita East coach

In his third season, Jackson led the Aces (24-1) to their ninth state title and first since 2005. The Aces, whose only loss came to Class 5A champion Wichita Heights, won seven straight after that 51-50 loss on Feb. 24, including a fourth-quarter rally to beat Olathe East in the 6A semifinals. The Aces defeated Lawrence 58-43 in the title game.

East’s All-State senior guard Zach Jackson (no relation) led the team in scoring with 16.8 points, just ahead of All-State senior guard Samajae Jones 16.1.

Jackson spent 2009-12 as an assistant at East, taking over after two-time state champion coach Ron Allen retired. Jackson, a Logan native, is 61-12 in three seasons.

East senior Zach Jackson: “He loves basketball, loves the game probably as much or more than anyone I’ve ever met. I think the happiest he could ever be would be to just be able to talk basketball all day long. That’s his passion, basketball, and as a player, you see that and you try to match it.

“He’s taught us that everybody has to be ready to go, that it can never be just a couple of guys. If we weren’t all on the same page, we would fail in reaching our goals.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2015 at 12:55 AM with the headline "The Wichita Eagle/VarsityKansas.com 2015 All-State boys basketball teams (VIDEO)."