North Tonawanda’s Jack Giancola might be listed at 6-foot-5 but he has a brain like a point guard and plays like an athletic big man. The senior big man skies for rebounds and putbacks to help a team that is four quarters away from the state semifinal.
Giancola has become one of Section VI’s top rebounders, averaging 10 per game. And he puts that on display regularly.
It is a skill that has taken work though and plenty of it. It is a growth that has gone alongside his team’s growth and improvement.
It has led to a nickname that he has embraced from opposing coaches and even his own coach, Chris Juergens, “Mini-Jokic.”
“It’s fun. He’s obviously the best player in the (NBA), I’m not saying that for myself at all but he’s got great post games,” Giancola said. “He can shoot a little bit. We’re both slow as hell. So I can see how I can be named that but like I said I’m not saying I’m the best player in the league but I can see the traits of slow, well post game, slow white dude.”
As a sophomore, in Giancola’s first year on varsity, North Tonawanda went 6-14 while he averaged 8.4 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. Last year, North Tonawanda improved to 11-10 while Giancola’s stats exploded to averaging 12.9 points and 9.3 rebounds per game.
This year has been another step forward. North Tonawanda is 17-7 overall and Giancola is averaging 15.5 points and 10 rebounds per game.
Every year of his career, Giancola has been his team’s leading scorer and rebounder. The team’s improvements have been a direct result of the fact that they have been playing together since they were little kids.
When Giancola started going to North Tonawanda in fifth grade after moving schools from St. Christopher’s in Amherst, he started playing with the kids he now considers his best friends.
“His freshman year, he was more of a traditional five, but he started getting quicker and stronger and then I was showcasing how he can handle the ball in his IQ,” Juergens said.
Giancola has helped his team win their first sectional title since 2020 and third since 2017. In both years, the Lumberjacks lost in the next round, something that Giancola is hoping will not repeat itself.
“Honestly, just do what we’ve been doing,” Giancola said. “It’s just playing as a whole team and we’ve all been playing together for years. So we all trust each other, we all love each other, we’re brothers. We don’t want it to end, so we’re going to keep going and do whatever it takes to keep going.”
Giancola has stepped up this postseason to help guide his team as the No. 7 seed all the way to the regionals. In four playoff games, Giancola is averaging 15 points and 11 rebounds per game.
His play under the bright lights has been helped by advice he received from his father, who played in the state tournament in the 1990s at St. Joseph’s Academy in Kenmore. Matt Giancola told his son about the atmosphere and the challenges that come with playing on the big stage.
Despite all his personal success, the only thing that matters to Giancola is the team’s success. It was one of his goals before the season to win a banner and now that his team has achieved that, he is happy.
“He’s worked his butt off to be at the point where he’s at right now and his work ethic shows from as far as an individual accolades and stat perspective,” Juergens said. “But he doesn’t even care about that. We had a talk before the season, he doesn’t care about any accolades, he just wants our team to hang a banner and have a good year and play team basketball.”
Throughout this season, Giancola has shown an innate ability to respond to bad games with good ones. Out of his 24 games this season, he has been held to single-digits six times, and he has responded in the immediate next game with double-digit points four times.
His most recent bounce-back game came on Feb. 27, when he followed up a four-point game with 24 points against Sweet Home in the third round of the Section VI Class AA tournament.
“I go home, watch film, see what the problems were, and work on them in the following day in practice,” Giancola said. “… I don’t hang my head too much about it, really find your weaknesses, see what you did wrong and work on them in practice the next day, just work on any weaknesses you got to make yourself better.”
Giancola has helped his team make it to the Class AA regional final where they will be taking on Penfield at 6:30 p.m. Friday.