“Dad, can you Cash App me some money?”
Josh Hubbard was in the ninth grade and out to dinner with his basketball team when he called his father, Jason Hubbard Sr., with that request.
“What’s going on?” Jason asked.
“I want to pay for our team meal,” Josh said. “For the entire team.”
Jason was pleasantly surprised. This was the mindset he had been hoping to instill in his son, so of course he obliged, sending Josh $300 to treat his teammates. “I knew then that there was something special there,” Jason tells Hoops HQ. “And each time he would call me for money, I would give it to him, because his heart was open.”
As he has risen to fame at Mississippi State and begun earning money of his own via NIL, Hubbard — a 6-foot junior guard and two-time All-SEC selection — has maintained his generous spirit. He graduated from buying his high school friends pizza to fully funding their recent trip to Turks and Caicos. He has become involved with numerous charities in Mississippi, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and launched an annual basketball camp (the Josh Hubbard Showcase) to help others aspiring to follow in his footsteps. “It’s a no brainer for me to give back when you’re blessed with so much,” Hubbard says. “That’s one of the main reasons why I play basketball.”
While critics of the new college basketball landscape often grumble about the amount that players are being paid, Hubbard has been using his NIL money and expanding platform to make a difference in the community. He doesn’t have an agent (Jason has informally stepped into the role), because in the eyes of the Hubbard family, the 15-20 percent fee that an agent typically collects can instead be applied to philanthropy. Hubbard was nominated for the 2025 Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup honor, which recognizes athletes for their character and leadership, and was named to the 2025 SEC Community Service Team.
“If he was the biggest CEO in the world or a guy just working a nine-to-five job with not a lot of resources, he would be the same person. He genuinely cares (about) and loves people,” Mississippi State assistant coach George Brooks says about Hubbard. “It’s not an act. It’s not like he’s doing this to make (himself) look a certain way. He has always been one of the nicest human beings you could ever be around. That’s not an accident, it just goes back to his family and upbringing.”
The importance of giving back was embedded in Josh — the youngest of five children — at an early age by his parents. Before he was born in 2004, the Hubbards had been through tough times. In the mid-1990s, Jason unexpectedly lost his job, leaving the family struggling to make ends meet. “There were times when we had nothing to eat,” Jason says. He went on to establish a successful Aerus franchise in Jackson, Miss., that he still manages today. “Now we’re able to give back because we know what it feels like to (be on) the other side,” Jason adds. “People don’t know that. There is a past that translates to now. I would tell Josh, ‘Nothing you obtain in life is all for you.’”
Hubbard’s perspective was also shaped by a traumatic health incident when he was just nine years old. In September 2014, he was admitted to the hospital with a wide range of alarming symptoms, including dry eyes, dehydration, conjunctivitis, sinus infection and pneumonia. His temperature spiked to as high as 106 degrees. For the first 10 days of his stay, while he laid in a bed with tubes in his nose and IVs in his arms, doctors struggled to diagnose him. Hubbard was eventually treated for Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that causes inflammation in the walls of blood vessels. After almost three weeks in the hospital, he was finally discharged.
“That situation definitely helped (make) me stronger mentally and to become a more positive person,” Hubbard says. It also gave him a better understanding of what people in health crises are dealing with, from the emotional toll to the financial burdens. Hubbard received much-needed support throughout that time from family, friends and medical staff.
Growing up in Mississippi (first in Jackson, then Madison), Hubbard learned to love and appreciate his home state. Both of his parents, Jason and Betty, were born and raised in Mississippi and attended high school in Jackson. His four older siblings all stayed in-state for college, and Josh was always determined to do the same, even as he emerged as an elite basketball prospect with offers from top schools across the country. “It was embedded in me, just being grateful for where you’re from, not being shy (about) where you’re from, embracing it and being proud of it,” Hubbard says.
As a star at Madison-Ridgeland Academy (MRA), Hubbard broke Mississippi’s all-time high school scoring record, which had stood for 37 years. He originally signed with Ole Miss, then flipped his commitment to Mississippi State after coach Kermit Davis left the Rebels. Hubbard made an immediate impact in Starkville, averaging 17.7 points and earning All-SEC honors as a freshman. With a heightened profile and deeper pockets, he started thinking about ways to give back.
“Sometimes guys have great success on the floor, and they can kind of get shifted,” says Brooks. “You can almost see it sometimes, where some of the values and stuff they have fade a little bit when they have so much success. He’s been the opposite. He’s been a champion of people and causes and anybody that he thinks needs help or encouragement or kind words.”
During his freshman campaign, Hubbard came up with the idea to host an annual basketball camp at MRA. He desired to help high school players prepare for the college level — both on and off the court — and give them a platform to showcase their skills, shedding more light on the incredible talent that Mississippi has to offer. Jason and Betty took the lead on logistics, as Josh was in the process of guiding the Bulldogs to a 21-14 season and an NCAA Tournament berth.
The inaugural Josh Hubbard Showcase was held in April 2024. Over the course of a weekend, campers received expert instruction from prominent coaches, including Hubbard, and competed for scholarship money (each player on the winning team was awarded $1,000). Hubbard’s current Mississippi State teammate Jamarion Davis-Fleming, a 6-foot-10 freshman forward, was one of the 17 participating players. “Everything we do in practice every day here at State, we did at his showcase,” Davis-Fleming said. “It was a great environment being there.”
The Showcase expanded in 2025, incorporating a girls’ game and granting even more in scholarship funds. “It’s definitely a blessing,” says Hubbard. “I love going back home and putting on for the city. I love having it in my high school. It’s just a full circle moment.” He plans to continue growing the event each year, with preparations for 2026 already underway.
In an era of college hoops defined by player movement, Hubbard has remained loyal to MSU and committed to serving the local people. A few months ago, Delbert Hosemann, Mississippi’s lieutenant governor, reached out to the Hubbards to ask for a favor. As Hosemann explained, a large percentage of African Americans in the state had not gone back to school following the Covid-19 pandemic, and he was hopeful that Josh might be able to assist in addressing the issue. Hubbard appeared on the radio to deliver a public service announcement, encouraging kids to return to the classroom.
In early November, Hubbard teamed with Aerus and U.S. Foods to donate $10,000 and supplies to the Ballas Family Community Kitchen, which serves 200 meals a day to the Greenwood, Miss., area. Along with Jason and Betty, he made a trip to the establishment in downtown Greenwood with a sprinter full of canned food and water bottles. Hubbard has also partnered with Make-A-Wish Mississippi for a season-long campaign called “Buckets for Wishes,” in which every three-pointer he sinks generates money for the foundation. Fans can get involved by pledging their own donations at bucketsforwishes.com (those who commit $25 or more per three-pointer receive an autographed gift from Hubbard). Through the first six games, Hubbard is averaging 24.5 points (fourth in Division I) and has already knocked down 21 threes.
Hubbard is focused on leading the 3-3 Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive year, but his mission is much bigger than that. He has plans to do a lot more to impact the community off the court, including building a new basketball facility to serve as a safe haven for youth.
“He’s a young man who’s obviously a tremendous basketball player,” says Brooks, “but I think he’s a better human being than basketball player.”
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