Ask most people when it began, and they'll point you to Jan. 26, 2011. Jimmer Fredette walked into BYU's Marriott Center that night as a very good but hardly transcendent college basketball player, a household name only in households that watched way too much Big Monday. Forty three points, several outrageous 3s over future NBA Hall of Famer Kawhi Leonard and one 71-58 win over undefeated San Diego State later, however, and Jimmer wasn't just Jimmer anymore. He was Jimmer, and he was well on his way to capturing the imagination of an entire country.

It's been a long time since JimmerMania took American sports by storm, and a great deal has changed. Jimmer himself has bounced from BYU to the NBA Draft lottery to the G League to Greece to China. But now what began in Provo, Utah, has arrived at the Paris Olympics, as Fredette gets set to add one last chapter to his basketball journey: member of the U.S. men's 3x3 basketball team.

Here's the story of how Fredette got here, and why he and his teammates just might be able to capture lightning in a bottle again.

Not particularly big and not particularly fast, Fredette was lightly recruited out of Glens Falls High School in upstate New York. He chose BYU over local Siena College, then played only sparingly as a freshman for the Cougars. Slowly but surely, though, his game developed: He started all but one game as a sophomore, averaging 16.2 points per game, then bumped that number up to 22.1 as a junior as BYU reached the second round of the NCAA tournament. 

In his senior season, everything changed. 

Best moments of JimmerMania

The San Diego State game was the flashbulb moment, but for my money, JimmerMania actually began a couple of weeks earlier, when Fredette erupted for 47 points on just 28 shots in a blowout win over hated rival Utah — including a one-footer from half-court to beat the halftime buzzer.

Then came the San Diego State game:

From that point on, Fredette's highlights were a nightly feature on SportsCenter, basketball fans around the country clamoring for a glimpse of the 6-foot-nothing guy who just kept on scoring anyway.

“I couldn’t go anywhere in Utah without getting asked for pictures and autographs, so I stopped going places with my girlfriend,” Fredette said. “We just hung out in our apartments and didn’t do much because every time I got out, I’d literally get mobbed.” 

Fredette kept on scoring: Another win over San Diego State, this time on the road; 52 points against New Mexico in the Mountain West Conference semifinals. He led the Cougars to a 30-4 record and a No. 3 seed in the tournament, where he would find himself on the cover of Sports Illustrated not once but twice. 

He just kept on doing his thing in March, dropping 34 more on Gonzaga in a second-round win including a 7-of-12 mark from 3:

BYU would fall in the Sweet 16 to Florida, but by then Fredette's legacy was secured. His stats from the 2010-11 season still read like a fantasy: 28.9 points per game, best in the nation, with nearly 40% shooting from 3 on nearly nine attempts per game — a number that was far rarer at the time. He won National Player of the Year honors, and was selected 10th overall in the 2011 NBA Draft by the Sacramento Kings.

Of course, the lack of physical tools that made him so endearing in college became more of a problem in the pros, as Fredette struggled to create separation on offense and hang on defense. The Kings bought out his contract in 2014, and after bouncing around between the Bulls, Pelicans and Knicks, he decided he needed a change.

Fredette landed with China's Shanghai Sharks, pretty far from the path he'd envisioned during his college days. And while it was taking place on the other side of the world, it was still a kick to see Jimmer being Jimmer again. The Sharks decided to simply let Fredette cook, and cook he did: He led the CBL in scoring average while winning MVP in his first year, then dropped 75 points in a single game in 2018.

It seemed like Fredette had finally found his level, a nice second act for an erstwhile folk hero. And then, two summers ago, he got a call.

The fledgling U.S. men's 3x3 program was at a crossroads in 2022. The squad had shockingly failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, and while Kareem Maddox and Canyon Barry remained, two spots needed to be filled. USA Basketball sent former college coach Fran Fraschilla to recruit Jimmer. Fraschilla thought that Jimmer's lethal shooting and basketball IQ would be an ideal fit for the format, and his pitch was simple:

If you want to do this, you can cement your legacy forever in basketball because you’ll help us qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 3x3. 

“As soon as I heard ‘Olympics,’ I was like, ‘I'm all in,’” Fredette said. “I saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime.”

As it turned out, Fraschilla's hunch was correct. The U.S. has been on a bit of a redemption tour of the past 18 months, winning the 2023 Pan American Games, earning silver at the 2023 FIBA World Cup and working all the way up to No. 2 in the world rankings — with Jimmer taking center stage. Given the different math of 3x3 — 3s are worth two points while everything else is worth one, making them even more valuable than in 5-on-5 — Fredette's shooting ability has been a game-changer.

Now the team has arrived in Paris, sights set on a medal, and JimmerMania has a chance to sweep the nation once again, maybe even go global. 

The U.S. begins pool play on Tuesday, July 30, with a showdown against world No. 1 Serbia. And if there's anything we know about Fredette, it's that he's always loved a big stage.