Jacob Grandison's path to Duke touched four schools across three states, two countries, and a sport that wasn't basketball. Before he ever picked up a ball in competition, he was a competitive swimmer — racing the 50-meter freestyle for the Oakland Undercurrents and qualifying for Junior Olympics. The kid from Oakland, California could have been a swimmer. Instead, he became one of the most well-traveled players in college basketball history.
Born on April 2, 1998, in San Francisco to an African-American father and a Swedish-speaking Finnish mother from Helsinki, Grandison grew up in Oakland with dual U.S.-Finnish citizenship — a detail that would define the second act of his career. His uncle, Anthony Grandison, played football at Cal. Basketball ran in the family, but the path to it was turbulent. At Berkeley High School, Grandison started on JV as a sophomore before moving to varsity, but he later left the program due to what he described as an unsafe coaching environment. He trained privately with Chris Garlington at Overtime Sports Academy before being spotted by Team Lillard — Damian Lillard's Adidas-sponsored AAU squad — which gave Division I coaches their first look at him.
He took a post-graduate year at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, the same kind of East Coast prep school pipeline that produced Max Johns at Woodberry Forest. At Exeter, he led the Exonians to the NEPSAC Class A championship, scoring 20 points in the title game and earning tournament MVP. He also lettered in volleyball, because of course he did.
Exeter opened the door to Holy Cross, where Grandison played two seasons under coach Bill Carmody. As a sophomore, he averaged 13.9 points per game — 11th in the Patriot League — with a career-high 25 points against Iona and a 22-point, 16-rebound double-double against Lafayette. He was becoming a legitimate mid-major star. Then he transferred to Illinois, sat out a year under the old transfer rules, and emerged as a key contributor on the 2020-21 Fighting Illini team that won the Big Ten Tournament. He scored a combined 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting across the three tournament games. As a senior in 2021-22, he started 23 of 30 games and shot .415 from three — the kind of perimeter shooting that makes coaches salivate. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Illinois before using his COVID bonus year of eligibility to transfer one more time.