Let me preface this post by saying that I was nowhere near Dallas, Texas or Moody Coliseum on Saturday.
I spent the day covering high school hoops and recruiting at the PrimeTime Shootout in New Jersey.
Yet even there the buzz surrounding the SMU basketball program was palpable.
And that was several hours before Larry Brown’s program stayed undefeated at home with a 76-55 victory over No. 7 Cincinnati, ending the Bearcats’ 15-game winning streak.
The victory marked SMU’s first win over a Top 10 team since 1987.
Seemingly everywhere I went Saturday people were talking about Brown and SMU, who trip to New Jersey Thursday to play Rutgers.
At the PrimeTime Shootout, three separate recruits, including potential future pro Tyus Battle of Gill St. Bernard’s, all mentioned that SMU was involved in their recruitment.
Brown is expected to watch Battle sometime this week when he comes to the Garden State.
And oh by the way, some of the other schools involved for Battle are Duke, Indiana, Syracuse, Villanova, Ohio State and Michigan.
Brown is also recruiting 6-9 2015 Roselle Catholic forward Chris Silva, who will attend the Rutgers game along with his teammate Isaiah Briscoe, and 6-7 2015 St. Anthony forward Markis McDuffie, who had 17 points in a loss to Trenton Catholic Academy.
“Great coach, he knows a lot of people, he has Emmanuel Mudiay coming in so he’s gonna teach him a lot,” Battle said of Brown, the only man ever to win NCAA and NBA championship as a head coach.
Will Brown and SMU get any of these players? Who knows?
But the way the players and coaches around New York and New Jersey speak reverentially about him can only help SMU’s recruiting efforts.
Call it coincidence or kismet, but on my drive home Rece Davis turned up on ESPN Radio raving about SMU and the buzz they had created by having Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and head coach Jason Garrett on hand for Thursday’s win over Temple.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Sanders, whose son is a sophomore receiver for SMU, tipped his cap to the crowd.
Meantime, SMU is getting still more good press and PR from the Markus Kennedy story.
According to multiple reports, Brown applied for an NCAA waiver for Kennedy to receive a plane ticket home to Philadelphia last week to see his mother, Barbara, who was scheduled Monday to be deployed by the Air Force to Kuwait for eight months.
“We weren’t expecting to see each other before she left,” Kennedy said in an NBC report. “That was kind of rough on me.”
Then, after a day in which SMU was talked up by players and coaches at the PrimeTime Shootout and by ESPN college basketball guys on the radio, the Mustangs went out and smacked a pretty good Cincinnati team in front of a rowdy crowd at Moody.
The Mustangs are now 13-0 at home and 4-4 on the road, begging the question how they’ll do should they make the NCAA Tournament, where they are now projected to be.
For now, Brown and his staff will carry their explosive buzz into New Jersey later this week, hoping to capitalize on the recruiting front.
Photo: Dallas Morning News
