Jack Collins should be celebrated for staying at Monmouth and being a four-year player

Jack Collins (13) attempts three-pointer as Monmouth battles Seton Hall. Manasquan native is a rare breed in college basketball today, having stayed with King Rice and Hawks for all of his four years. (Photo by Monmouth Athletics)

NEWARK, N.J. — A promotional tagline for the HBO drama “The Wire” once read, “don’t get attached to the characters, they don’t always make it to the next episode.”

With college basketball now inherently set up as it is,  a similar thought can be applied to its mid-major ranks. Where some of the more compelling stories in the game were told at that level, and still are, the principal protagonists are now usually entering the transfer portal a year later — sometimes two years if a program stumbles upon good fortune — in search of a bigger payday and a chance to ply their wares at a higher level, although the latter is not nearly as successful as the former.

It is this fait accompli among mid-majors that makes the four-year player an endangered species now, and thus garners him or her more respect for staying the course at a time where the lure to cash in is at its highest. But for Monmouth, and particularly senior guard Jack Collins, the cash register and bank account may as well be nonexistent.

Collins, the homegrown talent from Manasquan, has been a four-year starter for the Hawks, joining the program as it was making the transition from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference — where it had enjoyed measured success in nine years, winning two regular season championships and playing for three tournament titles — to the Coastal Athletic Association. While the move was driven primarily for football reasons, Monmouth progressed steadily, just as it had when joining the MAAC nearly a decade prior.

And in an atmosphere that had a history of developing program legends the likes of Andrew Nicholas, Justin Robinson, Josh James, Chris Brady, Austin Tilghman, Deion Hammond and George Papas as each ascended the ladder from freshman to sophomore, junior to senior, Collins advanced on a similar track. So when most other juniors in the mid-major ranks were exploring portal offers, Collins — and teammates Andrew Ball, Dok Muordar and Cornelius “Boogie” Robinson — pulled a sharp about-face.

“See, this is what people don’t understand: Jack never even tried to leave,” head coach King Rice said Thursday after Monmouth visited Seton Hall. “He didn’t talk to anybody about leaving. He went on vacation with some guys on our team, then he came back and he had Dok, Boog and Andrew staying also. That doesn’t happen, alright? Those guys all could have left, and if he was leaving, they would have left too. He went on vacation with them and then they all came back and said, ‘Coach, we’re not going anywhere. We’re staying with you.’”

“Jack could have moved up and got money, but he’s a Jersey kid. He’s gonna live at the shore, he’s probably gonna take over his parents’ bar someday. That would have been foolish to leave the shore.”

Collins, who did not even receive another Division I offer coming out of Manasquan High School, recounted that the decision — or lack thereof — was seemingly a no-brainer after Rice eventually became the only coach to take an interest in him.

“There was never really a thought of leaving,” he reaffirmed. “When I was in high school, I wasn’t recruited by anybody. I had two Division II offers that were partial (scholarships) that were kind of just iffy, and then I decided to do a prep year. The first (school) that called me during my prep year was Monmouth. I went on a visit and four days later, I committed. It’s the only school to ever give me an opportunity at the Division I level, and like (Rice) said, it’s foolish.”

“Everything that Coach has done for me, loyalty-wise, what he trusts in me on the court — you’re not going to go anywhere and play 39 minutes really anywhere in the country, and that’s just a fact. He has a lot of trust in me, maybe sometimes too much, but he really trusts me and he’s trusted me for four years, so I don’t think it would be fair to him. Even though players can go and get a lot of money nowadays, It doesn’t seem fair to up and leave when all the good stuff comes. Coach has been nothing but great to me my four years, so I’m obviously super loyal to Coach and super happy where I’m at.”

An all-rookie selection in the CAA as a freshman, Collins’ averages of nine points, six rebounds and nearly five assists per game during the young season might not be the gaudy type most fans drool over, but he is involved in almost every play on either side of the floor through his relentless hustle and outsized heart.

“Now he’s gonna break records for games played his year, all kinds of cool things,” a proud Rice gushed. “He has a chance to be Top 10 in like, every category in the history of basketball at Monmouth, so he’s a special kid to all of us and he’s a kid that no one thought was good enough to this. Now, he’s been a four-year starter, and probably one of the most important players in Monmouth basketball history while I was the coach. He just started from day one and I don’t ever want to take him out of the game, so that’s what he means to us.”

Perhaps it stands to reason that a player who embodies the blue-collar mentality and work ethic of his native Garden State would feel compelled to stay in his own yard, representing what he is and people who are, in essence, just like him.

“I love everything about Jersey, I love everything about Monmouth,” Collins said, humbly. “It’s who I am, now especially more than ever. I didn’t feel like I needed to leave or even really the inkling to leave.”

For that, he should be celebrated.