Luke Kennard got a lot of praise from a lot of folks Saturday night, but no salute was more begrudgingly given and more fully accepted than the one offered him outside the opposing locker room after the game.

“I had heard of him, but I hadn’t met him or anything,” said Justin Jackson, the 6-foot-8 junior star of HCYA, the Houston-based home-school powerhouse. “He was as good as I heard – no, better. He’s a great all-around player and he can really shoot. He’s a guy who keeps you on your heels.”

Nothing beats the embrace of a peer and right now Jackson is everything — and maybe more — that the highly-recruited Franklin sophomore is.

Jackson, who grew up in West Chester before his family moved back to Texas, is one of the more sought-after prep players in the nation. A week ago he narrowed his college list to six schools: Ohio State, North Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, Texas A&M and Washington.

Kennard, who’s as good of a football player as he is a basketball standout, said he got his first college feelers when he was in eighth grade. As a freshman last year, he was offered full rides by Ohio State and Xavier. And Saturday night when he went through the list of schools interested in him, it sounded like a rundown of college basketball’s Top 25.

Kennard and Jackson squared off in a Flyin’ to the Hoop match-up of their teams and Franklin stunned everyone with a 79-65 victory at Trent Arena.

Both guys scored 32 points. The 6-foot-5 Kennard, who went 5-for-7 from 3-point range, added 11 rebounds and five assists, while Jackson had 15 rebounds and two assists. All night long they went toe-to-toe, trading shots, steals, blocked shots and no-look passes.

“It was just two great players going at it and trying to show what they could do,” Jackson said.

Kennard’s been doing that a lot lately.

Franklin went to the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach over the Christmas break and Kennard was named the Most Outstanding Player of that national-draw tournament.

“His stock really went up,” said Franklin athletics director Rodney Roberts. “He hit the national scene there.”

Franklin coach Brian Bales called him “a once-in-a-lifetime” player: “He brings it every night and he plays his biggest in big games.”

Saturday night, though, he had plenty of help, especially with the Wildcats senior guard Travis Lakins – “the heartbeat of our team,” Bales called him – adding 24 points.

While HYCA travels the country and plays in a lot of tournaments like this, the big-time prep showcases are still a novelty to Franklin. They get the invites because they have a highly-recruited talent like Kennard, but all the Wildcats embrace the opportunity.

“Some teams go to these things all the time,” Bales said. “But we go to one and we’re foaming at the mouth to play. Our guys woke up at 6 a.m. ready to go today and some of them said they didn’t sleep last night because they were so excited.

“And then to play like this is a Saturday night marquee match-up, I’m just so proud of them. This is a program builder.”

Kennard agreed: “I feel like we were the underdog. And I think it’s going to shock people around the country when the score gets out there. I think we made people notice tonight.”

If you walked just a few feet down to the other dressing room – where Jackson still stood – you knew he certainly had.