The Giants’ quarterback will be at the Superdome on Saturday night with his family when his kid brother Bates Jones tries to help Mike Krzyzewski and Duke beat North Carolina and reach the NCAA Championship game on Monday night.
“We played a lot growing up,” Daniel Jones told The Post. “We were on the same team. We were real little, I guess, and then on the same team again in high school. We played all the time growing up, and we probably played more basketball than we did anything in the neighborhood, and just around Charlotte, obviously in the backyard.”
Bates, a 6-foot-8 reserve graduate student transfer from Davidson, has three inches on his brother.
“He’s taller than I am. He’s 6-8 and can shoot the 3. He’s always been able to shoot it,” Daniel said. “As a kid, he probably shot it too much. A smart player, not afraid to be physical, to get in there and rebound and mix it up. But he’s always been able to shoot it pretty well.”
Bates, 23, was a three-year letter winner at Charlotte Latin High School as well as an all-state quarterback. Daniel, 25 next month, earned three letters in basketball and was co-captain as a senior.
“I’m thrilled for him, just excited to watch him,” the quarterback said. “It’s really been an incredible season for him. To finish like this, to have an opportunity to go to the national championship, so much tradition, so much history between these two teams playing basketball, and just the fact that he’s a part of it is pretty cool, and looking forward to seeing him.”
Daniel broke his wrist playing basketball as a junior and was recruited as a quarterback by Princeton before Duke head coach David Cutcliffe came calling. He did visit North Carolina.
“They didn’t consider me a whole lot,” Daniel said, and chuckled.
All’s well that ended well, and Daniel hopes it ends well for Coach K. “I think it’d be awesome,” Daniel said, “and no one’s more deserving than he is, what he’s been able to accomplish in his career. There’s no denying his greatness. So that’d been cool, and I think would be a perfect finish for what he’s done and all he’s accomplished in his career.”
Daniel can vouch for the Cameron Crazies atmosphere. “It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s an unbelievable sports environment, unlike anything I’ve experienced, and unlike anything anywhere else, basketball or any sport really. I think that’s unique to Duke, it’s part of what makes the Duke basketball tradition so special.”
Of course he has been in the student section. “I wouldn’t say I was up in the front row with my chest painted and everything (laugh),” he added.
Bates averages 5.4 minutes off the bench. It’s every North Carolina kid’s dream to play in a game like this.
“I think it means more than any other rivalry in sports,” Daniel said. “I think every year these are the biggest games in North Carolina, it’s what all your friends are talking about at school, it’s what everyone’s talking about at church. It’s definitely the biggest game in North Carolina every year.
“It’s what people care about the most, so the fact that it’s going to happen again on this stage with this much on the line I think it means even more, which is pretty incredible.”