Melissa Jackson - Women's Basketball Coach - University of Akron Athletics

Photo by: Jeff Harwell

Melissa Jackson

Title:
Head Coach
Email:
mjacks@uakron.edu
Phone:
(330) 972-5510

Follow Coach Jackson on Twitter

Fifth-year head coach Melissa Jackson enters the 2022-23 campaign after leading the Zips to a 17-12 overall record and an 13-7 mark in the Mid-American Conference action a season ago en route to a berth in the Women's National Invitation Tournament.

Since taking over, Jackson has gone on to capture a 55-56 overall record.

The Zips entered the 2019-20 campaign returning four starters, all seniors. Shayna Harmon, Haliegh Reinoehl and Caitlin Vari, started all 31 games for Akron as juniors, while Shaunay Edmonds earned the starting assignment 24 times.

The challenge for Jackson and her staff in year two was to continue the growth and development both on and off the court that her players established in her initial campaign as head coach. That was important for Jackson as the Zips’ roster boasted six newcomers seeking to mesh with a talented core of upperclassmen.

Akron opened the season winning four of its first five games en route to going 7-4 in non-conference action. The Zips added their third tournament title under Jackson claiming the trophy at the 2019 Puerto Rico Clasico in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Akron improved its conference ledger by one win on the year at 8-10 overall, doubled its road victory total from a year earlier and earned a home MAC Tournament game for the second consecutive season.

The Zips proved a challenging opponent for its MAC foes as Akron was involved in seven games decided by five points or less, and 13 by 10 or fewer points.

One of Akron’s biggest wins came on Feb. 19, 2020, when the Zips sparked by a 24-point, 13-rebound effort from Reinoehl, took down Buffalo, the defending MAC Tournament champion, 69-63. The victory marked the first for Akron on the Bulls’ homecourt since the 2014-15 campaign.

Reinoehl and Jordyn Dawson were tabbed as third- and honorable-mention All-MAC selections, while Edmonds and Reinoehl became the 18th and 19th Zips, respectively, to surpass the 1,000-point plateau.

Akron registered a 3.23 team GPA for the fall 2019 term, with Alyssa Clay, Harmon, Kendall Miller and Vari garnering Academic All-MAC accolades.

In her first season as head coach, Jackson led the Zips to a 16-15 overall record, a +7 win differential from the 2017-18 campaign, and a 7-11 Mid-American Conference mark. Akron secured a No. 8 seed in the 2019 MAC Championship Tournament and later participated in the 2019 Women’s Basketball Invitational, the teams second trip to the WBI since 2010 and first postseason tournament since 2016.

Throughout the 2018-19 season, Jackson secured her first head coach victory against North Carolina A&T (49-36), became the second head coach in program history to win the first three games of a debut season and first to do so in the Division I era, and cemented her name into the Zips history books as the all-time winningest first-year head coach with 16 victories.

The University of Akron Director of Athletics Larry Williams announced on June 27, 2018, that Jackson was selected as the head coach of the Akron women’s basketball program.

Following her 10-year stint on the Zips staff that included six years as associate head coach, Jackson became the 10th head coach in Akron women’s basketball history.

As the recruiting coordinator, Jackson was instrumental in bringing the Akron women’s basketball program to the forefront of the MAC. Akron’s 2013-14 senior class marked Jackson’s first full recruiting class at Akron, and ended their careers as the all-time winningest class in school history with 74 victories over four years.

In 2015-16, two of her pupils, Anita Brown and Hannah Plybon, garnered All-MAC honors. Brown, who averaged 18.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.3 steals per contest, while connecting at a 47.3 percent clip from the field en route to earning second-team all-conference accolades. Plybon turned in a breakout campaign in 2014-15 registering 13.2 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game en route to earning third-team All-MAC honors. She set a then single-season school record for three pointers made with 97 and attempted the second-highest single-season total (260) in program history.

Jackson mentored five of the most prolific passers in Akron single-season history, Kacie Cassell, Megan Barilla, Ayla Guzzardo, Natasha Williams, and Shaunay Edmonds, while Cassell, Barilla, and Brown each rank in the programs top-ten for most assists in a career. Jackson’s coaching on and off the court helped Cassell become the programs all-time assists leader during her four-year career (2010-14) with 688 total assists, while she also holds the top two spots for most assists in single-season history (2012-13, 2013-14).

From 2012-14, Jackson transformed Hanna Luburgh into one of the most feared shooting guards in the conference. Luburgh left the program as the fourth all-time leading scorer in school history with 1,634 points. She also set the single-season scoring record as a senior, posting a league-leading 734 points. The two-time all-conference and all-MAC Tournament selection ranked 13th in the country in points per game.

Also under Jackson’s watch, Taylor Ruper earned All-MAC honors in 2012. During Ruper’s career at Akron, Jackson helped to develop her into Akron’s then all-time leading three-point shooter, and one of the best long-range shooters in the league. Four years later, Plybon under the guidance of Jackson, became the new all-time three-point specialist and ended her career with a program-best 313 triples made, including 104 three-pointers made in 2015-16.

Jackson joined the UA staff after helping to guide the University of Delaware program to three postseason berths – including a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2007 – in four seasons while in the same role from 2004-05 to 2007-08.

During Jackson’s time at Delaware, the Blue Hens captured a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) regular season championship in 2004-05, a pair of WNIT berths in 2005 and 2006, and earned an at-large bid to the Big Dance with a 26-6 record in 2007. Overall, UD posted a four-year record of 80-44 (.645) and won 71 percent of its conference games (51-21) during that stretch.

Jackson, who worked primarily with the guards at Delaware, helped mentor 2007 WNBA draftee (No. 18 overall) and former Detroit Shock guard Tyresa Smith and a pair of CAA defensive players of the year in Smith (‘06, ‘07) and Kyle DeHaven (‘08). Jackson also played key roles in the recruitment of Jocelyn Bailey, a Top 100 player according to HoopGurlz.com in 2008, and Tesia Harris, the 14th-best swing guard in the nation according to the All-Star Girls Report in 2007.

Jackson played four seasons at the University of Richmond and earned a political science degree in May of 2004. She appeared in 50 career games as a guard with the Atlantic 10 Conference power and earned WNIT berths in both 2003 and 2004. Her ‘04 squad advanced to the semifinals.

A former All-State selection at Hazleton Area High School in Hazleton, Pa., Jackson is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and has participated in a number of charitable programs, including Habitat for Humanity, Helping Hands and Adopt a Grandparent.

Jackson and her husband, Drew, currently reside in Bay Village with their sons, Luke and Ben.

11-25-20