Jada ready to Cook in year two with Racers
WBB: The sophomore guard played in 32 games for Murray State last year
Talking to Jada Cook in the summer of 2025, as she prepares for her sophomore season at Murray State, is a completely different conversation from the one we had 12 months ago.
“There’s a big difference,” Cook said with a smile. “I feel more confident coming in for my second year. I'm happy because I have a great bond with my teammates, I’m happy to see everybody and excited to get better.”
The transition to college basketball can be tough for most any player. For a lot of kids, they go from being the best player on their high school team to just trying to find a role on their new team.
Cook started last season as a rotational piece off the bench. With the offensive firepower in the lineup, Cook wasn’t being leaned on to score, but to contribute with her smothering defense. In the first 13 games of the season, Cook averaged 12.3 minutes per game. In the next 12 game, though, that number dropped to 6.6. Ultimately, her playing time increased down the stretch, and she played some key minutes in the postseason helping the Racers win a Missouri Valley Conference Tournament championship. While there may have been some ebbs and flows in her playing time, Cook understands it’s all part of the process.
“At first, I was excited because I got to play,” Cook said. “Then some minutes started to go down. I was a little bit confused, but then I started to realize that it's nothing personal. We have a really great team, and some people just perform better at times, and that's OK. I didn't keep my head down with that. I just kept working, and then it paid off in the end.”
“Jada is a kid that can affect both sides of the ball,” Murray State Head Coach Rechelle Turner added. “I think once Jada started focusing on the defensive side of the ball and relaxed offensively, then things tended to be easier offensively. That’s something that we're trying to do with her process. ‘Hey, affect the game defensively. Your offense will come.’ She's very capable of shooting the basketball, she's capable of scoring, and capable of helping everybody around her be better. She's that type of player, but she's going to have to understand that it's got to be a process with her, and that her time and her offensive output is going to come. She has to do and control what she can control, so her effort and her energy on the defensive end of the floor is going to help her get more minutes, and that will allow her to produce offensively.”
Cook’s best all-around game of the year came in Murray State’s win at Little Rock on November 26th. In 18 minutes, she scored a season-high nine points, made her only three-point attempt, while chipping in with two rebounds, an assist and two steals. Cook only made 4-of-31 shots from beyond the arc for the season, and that’s been a focus for her ‘to-do list’ this summer.
“I'm trying to get better at being consistent with shots, making shots, all that stuff,” Cook said. “Of course, I play defense, that's what I do, but just playing on both sides of the ball effectively.”
For all the returners, this season begins a new era of Murray State Women’s Basketball. Gone is the program’s all-time leading scorer in Katelyn Young, along with seniors Ava Learn, Trinity White and Jenna Walker — that’s a combined 4,145 points in a Racer uniform. Some of the faces may have changed on this year’s roster, but to paraphrase Rechelle Turner: The standard is the standard. Cook is ready to try to help return the Racers to the top of the Missouri Valley Conference.
“It's definitely a new thing for us, of course,” Cook said. “Everybody's going to be fine. It's still (early). Everybody's learning new spots, and all that. We’re going to be fine.”
Looking forward to watching Jada kill it!