Growing up, Jalen Hood-Schifino played basketball in his grandparents’ backyard. He played against his older cousins, Sherron and DeAndre Schifino. DeAndre Schifino would end up being a member of the University of Pittsburgh’s football team. Sherron Schifino would end up playing college basketball (and still currently is). Sherron and DeAndre Schifino’s friends — who were also older than Hood-Schifino — played with them, too. “I was always the young kid,” Hood-Schifino explained on Thursday via Zoom. When he was younger, Hood-Schifino got dominated by the older competition.
Eventually, though, Hood-Schifino caught up. Hood-Schifino said when he was 12 years old, he was able to compete with them.